
BooIc._ J±:'^ 



(ipightN?__ 



CQEOilCHT DEPOSm 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 

THE SUNDAY SCHOOL AN EVANGELISTIC 
OPPORTUNITY 



EVANGELISM 



^^jlA*^ by 
F: WATSON H ANNAN 




THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 
NEW YORK CINCINNATI 






Copyright, 1 921, by 
F. WATSON HANNAN 



MAR 1 1 1921 
aClA6il070 



.X' 1 






TO MY THREE SONS, WHOSE FILIAL 
DEVOTION, LOVE TO GOD AND HIGH 
IDEALS ILLUSTRATE THE EVANGEL- 
ISM HEREIN SET FORTH, IS THIS 
BOOK MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDI- 
GATED. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Foreword 9 

PART I 
GENERAL EVANGELISM 

CHAPTER 

. I. The General Statement 13 

II. The Program 19 

III. General Methods 47 

IV. The Message (General) 54 

V. The Message (Specific) 67 

PART II 
PASTORAL EVANGELISM 

I. The Need of Pastoral Evangelism 85 

11. The Big Union Meetings 100 

III. The Periodic Revival 113 

IV. The Conduct of the Periodic Revival 119 

V. Continuous Evangelism 133 

PART III 
SUNDAY SCHOOL EVANGELISM 

I. Opportunity and Responsibility 143 

II. Decision Day 172 

PART IV 
PRACTICAL EVANGELISM CONSERVING RESULTS 

I. The Christian Life 181 

II. The Doctrinal Basis 198 

III. The Christian Service 217 

IV. The Art of Soul- Winning 228 

V. The Master Soul- Winner 241 



THE FOREWORD 

At a time like this, when so many valuable and in- 
structive books on all phases of evangelism are offered 
to the church, it seems presumptuous to add still an- 
other to the already long list. But the field of evangel- 
ism is so vast and so varied that no one book can cover 
it all, and no one man can give all the counsels and sug- 
gestions that may be of practical value. So the writer 
feels that there may be a need and use for the small 
contribution that he is able to make to this very im- 
portant work of evangelism. 

If this book has any merit, it is this : its principles 
and plans were practiced before they were written, and 
they worked well. If they prove as successful to others 
as they have been to the writer, who tested them out 
in his own evangelistic ministry, he will feel that work 
has been worth while. 

The chief aim of the book is to give young ministers 
a broader view of evangelism than is sometimes held by 
showing how fundamental it is to all church activity, 
and thus helping them to be more efificient evangelistic 
pastors. It is hoped, however, that laymen also may be 
stimulated by it to a larger and more thorough evan- 
gelistic endeavor. 

Evangelism has not been considered broadly enough. 
It has been thought of only as an incident in the gen- 
eral program of church activity. If the church held 
evangelistic meetings for one month in the year, it 
seemed to think that its evangelistic obligations had 

9 



lo THE FOREWORD 

been met, whether the meetings had been successful or 
not. The object of evangeHsm was thought to be the 
saving of men's souls. That was good as far as it 
went, but it did not go far enough. Evangelism must 
save man in his entirety, and that means that society 
must be saved as well as the individual. That is the 
modern note in evangelism. It aims to establish the 
kingdom of God in the earth. That was the evangelism 
of the Old Testament prophets. It was the evangelism 
of Jesus and his apostles, and that is the evangelism 
which the modern world needs and demands, if the new 
world that is built after the wreckage of the war is 
to be a Christian world. Men must be rightly related 
to God and to one another if true democracy and 
brotherhood are to be realized on the earth. It is for 
that kind of an evangelism that this book pleads. 

The reader will find repetitions and some overlap- 
ping here and there in the book, but the discussion of 
the same or similar subjects under different heads 
made that almost inevitable. The subjects are grouped 
in such a way that the pastor can study each group by 
itself with much cross reference, hence the repetitions 
and overlappings. 

It is with the hope that this book may kindle the 
evangelistic passion of Jesus in the hearts of young 
men entering the ministry and be of practical value to 
them and those who work with them in the further- 
ance of the gospel that it is now sent forth. 

F. Watson Hannan. 
Drew Theological Seminary, 

Department of Biblical Theology, 
Madison, N. J. 



PART I 



GENERAL EVANGELISM 



CHAPTER I 

THE GENERAL STATEMENT 

The object of evangelism is to get men and women 
— to get folks — into right relation to God. That means 
far more than to give them a comfortable feeling now 
and a sense of future security, for the immediate corol- 
lary of right relation to God is right relation to men. 
Any evangelism which does not include the redemp- 
tion of the whole life to its highest uses and most com- 
plete development comes far short of the demands of 
to-day. If the reconstruction which is to issue from 
world peace is to be a real new world, it must result 
from a reconstructed humanity in its entirety. That is 
a task great enough to challenge the best effort of God 
and man working together. This will not and cannot 
be done by one stroke, but it must be the goal of evan- 
gelistic endeavor, or the church will go on marking 
time and fail of its great opportunity. Meantime in- 
stitutions outside of the church will strive to meet the 
world's need, and they too will fail for want of that 
spiritual dynamic which is the normal instrument of 
the church at its best. 

Task of Evangelism 

The task of evangelism is the salvation of mankind. 
That is more than saving the soul. If men once thought 
that the supreme object of life was to get to heaven 

13 



14 EVANGELISM 

to-morrow, the supreme object of the best thought 
now is to get heaven down to earth to-day. But the 
heaven that the world needs is not the quiet resting 
place whose only activity will be singing and harp- 
playing. It will not be expressed by that hymn, "There 
I shall bathe my weary soul in seas of heavenly rest,'' 
etc. That was the heaven longed for by the tired 
saints of yesterday, whose life in the world had been 
a weary round of toil and self-denial. Perhaps those 
saints thought more of sacrifice than service. But 
the heaven which is to begin down here and to con- 
tinue beyond all time and worlds is a heaven of vigor- 
ous righteousness, of tireless service, of world-wide 
sympathy, of real brotherhood built around Jesus 
Christ, sanctifying all the dealings and relationships of 
men, and making the world a real kingdom of God. 

Justice, equity, cooperation, sympathy, good will, 
fairplay, mutual confidence — these are to be the com- 
mon rules of everyday life in the new kingdom. Jeal- 
ousy, greed, hatred, suspicions, intrigue, brutality, op- 
pression, and all such pagan sins must be done away. 
That man is not really a saved man who does not 
set before him as his life task the practice of the 
above group of virtues and the purpose to oppose and 
do away with the above group of vices. The gospel 
recognizes geography but not nationalities as such. 
The true Christian is the real, the true international. 
He is a world democrat, for he is a citizen of a mo- 
narchical democracy, whose King is also Brother; 
One who loves all and rules all by serving all. To make 
disciples of all nations, whether at home or abroad — 
for to-day everybody is everywhere — is the task of 



THE GENERAL STATEMENT 15 

evangelism. The gospel is a law of the survival of the 
fittest, but it makes men fit to survive, and it sees 
to it that those who are made fit do survive. It is a 
real transformation of humanity; that is its great mis- 
sionary motive. The missionary does not seek the 
soul of the non-Christian alone, but he also aims to 
create better schools, industries, homes, and other ad- 
vantages. His object is to make a whole new man out 
of every man, and to make a new world in which the 
new man is to live and serve. Paul showed in Romans 
7, once for all, that there can be no successful or happy 
living by serving God with the law of the mind and 
at the same time serving sin with the law of the mem- 
bers. 'Tf any man be in Christ, he is a new creature" 
(2 Cor. 5. 17) ^ His life is organized around a new 
center — Christ; and has a new direction — Godward; 
and a new motive — Service. The ministry of the early 
Christians was preaching and healing. Paul's ministry 
was of the most practical sort. He did not think it 
enough to tell the Romans or Corinthians how to say 
their prayers, but how to live their lives as well. If 
they were to have the mind of Christ, so also their 
bodies were holy temples. The man that would not 
work should not eat; that is, the nonproducer should 
not be a consumer when his nonproduction was a mat- 
ter of choice. 

The Winsomeness of the Gospel 

But while the gospel program taxes every energy 
of mind, heart, and hand, and while its righteousness is 
uncompromising and austere, yet all the while the gos- 

^Revised Version, ''there is a new creation." 



i6 EVANGELISM 

pel for the whole man is the most winsome thing in 
the world, because it makes the most winsome people in 
the world. Adorned people adorn the gospel. That 
must be so if the gospel is to be a winning force, and 
it must win men, they cannot be forced into the 
realm of morals. Men must not only do the right, 
but must want to do the right. The action must be 
backed by choice, or, the choice must issue in consist- 
ent action. An evangelism that touches only the moral 
conscience will not be long effective, nor will one that 
touches only the social conscience. Neither will be 
effective without the other. The one may be an in- 
spiration, the other an activity. They must unite. The 
moral conscience must issue in the social conscience; 
that is to say, moral power must issue in social action. 
Character and conduct must go together. Social and 
industrial problems at the root, or in the fruit, are 
moral problems. 

Evangelism must deal with sin, which is a wrong 
attitude toward God, that is, anarchy in the spiritual 
realm, but it must also deal with sins which are the 
projections of that attitude in concrete forms of wrong 
among men. Rent problems, wage problems, work 
problems, sanitary problems, school problems, home 
problems, recreation problems are all problems of evan- 
gelism, for in the last analysis they are all moral prob- 
lems. That man need expect little salvation at the 
altar, no matter how deep his contrition or how genuine 
his repentance may be, if next day he is going to op- 
press or overreach his neighbor in business, or be tyran- 
nical or unreasonable in his home. He cannot settle the 
problems of his soul with God without settling the 



THE GENERAL STATEMENT 17 

matters of his conduct with men. Nor can he mend his 
ways with men and ignore the claims of God. No one- 
sided salvation will bring in the kingdom of God. 
Holiness is not a tangent running off the orbit of nor- 
mal life, but normal life at its best, the soul in perfect 
health. Holiness is not a matter of rapture, but of 
righteousness, whether it expresses itself rapturously 
or not. An evangelism which does not produce both ^ 
Christian character and Christian service is a mis- 
taken evangelism. Evangelism that is not ethical is not/- 
needed. 

No amount of machinery in the church can be made 
a substitute for Christian experience, which is the 
power that will make the machinery efficient. The 
man who tries to render Christian service without the 
Christian experience lacks inspiration; and the man 
who makes his Christian experience a personal luxury, 
lacks application. The one is like perpetual fog or rain, 
which would make the earth a quagmire ; the other is 
like endless sunshine, which would make the earth a 
dust heap. Neither could support life. There is danger 
that the habit of powerful prayer, that is, very per- 
sonal and very expectant prayer, will be left out of 
the account when machinery is multiplied to cover 
every need. One of the greatest powers in evangelism 
is the power of prayer that comes upon one in com- 
munion with God. 

Prayer and Evangelism 

The greatest soul-winners have been mighty in 
prayer. This may seem trite, but it is fundamental. 
It is a great thing when doing God's work to be on 



i8 EVANGELISM 

speaking terms with him. Petition and intercession 
are the two essential forms of prayer in evangelism. 
Prayer for equipment and prayer for success means 
the nearer we get to God the more we are concerned 
about men. In God's presence we catch Christ^s pas- 
sion. Personal, social, pastoral, lay evangelism are 
all different phases of the same thing. Different 
methods may be employed and different emphasis may 
be used, but the content is the same. Personal evan- 
geHsm, social evangelism, and industrial evangelism 
are all but the individual and corporate application of 
the rule of God over the lives and activities of men. 
The purpose of it all is the same — to save the entire 
human life, to get the kingdom of God down here, 
and to get the will of God done in the world. In a 
-word, it is to make the world the kingdom of God. ^ 
That means to change environment as well as to change 
man. 

It is necessary to make the Jericho road safe for 
everybody, else relieving the victim of the robbers helps 
the robbers, for it relieves them of adding murder to 
robbery. Whenever you remedy a defect without re- 
moving the cause you help the cause. The foundling- 
asylum relieves lust from the necessity of committing 
infanticide. The inebriate asylum gives a man a bet- 
ter home for being a drunkard than many men can get 
by thrift and sobriety. Philanthropy is not evangel- 
ism, it is only one of its by-products. Unless help 
becomes self-help, it is hindrance. When a man is 
helped to a place where he does not have to help him- 
self he is permanently injured, pauperized, robbed of 
all self-respect, and made dependent. 



CHAPTER II 

THE PROGRAM 

Neither the evangelistic passion which many have, 
nor the evangeHstic message which many give will 
count for much, at least will not count for most, un- 
less there is an evangelistic program commensurate 
with the passion and message. There is no use of 
preaching an evangelistic message if the subjects of 
evangelism are not there, no need for calling the saints 
to repentance, or explaining the conditions of conver- 
sion, or pressing the claims of God on those who al- 
ready are saved. The message to the saved is for bet- 
ter character and broader service, not for repentance 
and conversion. It is folly to ask sinners forward to 
the altar when there is not a sinner in the house. It 
is more — it is farcical. Neither can an evangelistic 
pastor do much in an unevangelistic church. Evangel- 
ism is not a one-man af¥air. If the church is not 
interested;, cooperative, and sympathetic in its attitude 
toward the whole project of evangelism, little that 
is of permanent value can be accomplished. To bring 
new converts into a cold, unsympathetic church is to 
invite backsliding in advance. The whole church must 
be so interested in the work of conversion, and in all 
the preparatory activities, that when new converts are 
received into membership they will not feel that they 
are becoming parts of a formal institution but mem- 

19 



20 EVANGELISM 

bers of a sympathetic family. When the church loses 
its family idea it loses its power. Christian character 
cannot grow in a frigid, uncongenial environment. The 
church must have something to do with the conversions 
if it expects to have any important part in the Chris- 
tian culture and service of those who are converted 
and brought into the church through evangelistic ef- 
fort. The larger the number engaged in evangelism, 
the larger number of interested friends will the new 
members find in the church. The church must, with 
the pastor as leader, have an evangelistic policy as well 
as a social or financial policy. The financial policy of 
the best-organized and best administered churches is 
that of the pledge system secured through the every- 
member canvass. That is made easy if the tithing 
system or some other such plan is adopted. The aim 
is to give everybody interested in the church an op- 
portunity to help support it ; that is, the policy of get- 
ting money is by giving opportunity and inviting co- 
operation. 

The second feature of good financial policy in dis- 
pensing the money so gotten is to meet all obligations 
when due, showing that in doing business for God the 
church is in the front rank of business integrity, hon- 
esty, and promptness. A church may have all that. 
Then a church may be well organized as to its boards, 
committees, etc., to carry on a fine social and recrea- 
tional program in the community. It may have all 
that, and yet that church may have no evangelistic 
policy. It may have no policy to make it as evangelis- 
tically efficient as it is financially and socially efficient. 
The church by personal effort gives all the members 



THE PROGRAM 21 

and attendants an opportunity to support it. It throws 
the door open to the community on social occasions, 
and invites the people of the community to enjoy its 
social life. That is all very important. But is there 
the same intentional policy to reach the unconverted? 
Is the policy of the church one that extends to these 
people the same opportunity to accept or refuse the 
claims of Christ that it gives to the members to con- 
tribute or not contribute to its support, or to come or 
not to come to the social activities ? In matters of busi- 
ness the church is precise. If it owes a man money, it 
meets its obligation promptly, and ought to ; but will it 
be true, after that is done, the man can say, "The 
church paid my bill but is not interested in my souF' ? 
If the church is to be a winning force for the Kingdom, 
it must have an evangelistic policy. What shall we do 
this year to reach the unsaved of the community? is 
a more vital question than How shall we advance the 
church in its financial and social affairs? 

Evangelistic Efficiency 

Now, if there is a definite, earnest evangelistic policy 
for every year, and that policy is as seriously discussed 
as any other part of the church's activity — indeed, if 
it is made the main business of the church — it will issue 
in a practical evangelistic program. Many churches do 
no evangelistic work because they do not plan for it. 
It is not a part of their policy. The unsaved of the 
community should be reached in some systematic way, 
and the gospel offered to them either by personal 
workers or by getting them to come to the church 
where they can hear the evangelistic message. In any 



22 EVANGELISM 

event the gospel should be presented to them. If there 
is a policy there will be a program. The program 
will be the policy reduced to action. Every good busi- 
ness house has a policy to reach a constituency, to 
handle goods, to expand the business and to make 
profits. The church which is doing, or supposed to 
be doing, business for God, ought to have as much 
sagacity and enterprise in religion, extending the King- 
dom, getting new members, building up old ones, and 
helping new and old, as the business houses conducted 
by the members of the same churches have. In ex- 
tending trade the business houses put salesmen on the 
road who will secure new customers, hold old ones, put 
goods on the market which the public want, anticipate 
future needs, and make provision to be first on the 
market when the new demands arise. That is busi- 
ness foresight, commercial sagacity. When a method 
ceases to be profitable they drop it, and adopt a new 
method that is profitable. They don't hold on to old 
methods for sentimental reasons when they no longer 
work. When a fine of goods ceases to be in demand 
or marketable, progressive business houses will not 
carry it. They will not waste time, money, and space 
for a line of goods that will not sell. Neither will they 
keep on the road or behind the counter the man who 
either cannot or will not sell goods. He must do busi- 
ness to hold his place. Good business men wall not 
mark time as a policy. They do it only as an emer- 
gency to tide over a period of depression. In advertis- 
ing their goods they do it in such an attractive way as 
to create a desire for them. Advertising has become 
not only an extensive business in itself, but a fine art. 



THE PROGRAM 23 

That creates demand which stimulates supply and so 
makes business. They make their leaders the goods 
which are most attractive as to looks, price, and utility. 
Defective goods do not get into their show windows. 
Often the most attractive goods shown in the windows 
are not marked as to price, so as to get people into the 
store to find out; then they buy. These methods are 
legitimate and successful. The church could copy all 
these methods and adapt them to its spiritual enter- 
prise with great profit. 

Church Organization 

If the business men of the church were as thoroughly 
up to date and efficient in the work of their church 
as they are in their business, nothing in the world could 
impede the progress of the church. The only way to 
keep a passion for God's work alive in pulpit or pew is 
to have it issue in action. And the success of action 
stimulates more action. No factory could be run on 
the average church methods — twenty-five per cent of 
the operatives working and seventy-five per cent of 
them looking on. Again, in the church, we often see 
the same small group doing all sorts of work. In 
the big factory one man does one thing or handles one 
process, and he does so as an expert. Then all parts, 
each turned out by an expert, are assembled, and the 
public gets the benefit of the perfect product. But it 
takes division of labor and specialization of skill to do 
it. That principle is not well observed in the church. 
Here is an opportunity to so organize the church that 
there will be division of labor and specialization of 
skill to such an extent that the Kingdom will get the 



24 EVANGELISM 

perfect finished product, and at the same time no one 
will be burdened in its production as he is in many- 
churches now. A few have to give to the point of 
sacrifice, and the sacrifice never lets up, while others, 
far more able to give, do not give at all. A few work 
to the point of drudgery, which never ceases, while 
other people of far more leisure and greater ability to 
serve do little or nothing. A church which has not a 
better temper and method than that can never conquer 
a community for God. 

So in some communities while the population is 
increasing the church is diminishing, not relatively, but 
absolutely; and where this happens there will be a 
church with a seating capacity of twelve hundred or 
more, having a morning congregation — considered 
good — of a hundred and fifty to two hundred, and an 
evening congregation of seventy-five to one hundred, 
and this despite the fact that the community is now 
three or four times as large as it was when there 
was a congregation that filled the church. It is not 
for lack of folks that the church is nearly empty, but 
because it has not a program to reach the people that 
are all about it. That is not an uncommon experience. 
The personnel of the community may be a good deal 
changed, but the church is to minister to all sorts of 
people. It has missionaries in all lands, but when all 
lands come to the church it is not organized to do for 
the foreigner on the home field what it does for him 
on the foreign field. When the church goes to him it 
has a plan to help him, but when he com.es to the 
church it seems to have no plan to help him. The 
business house often does the same thing the church 



THE PROGRAM 25 

does — It moves uptown. But the business that stays 
on the ground and succeeds is the house that handles 
the goods which that community needs and can afiford 
to buy and will buy. The community supports the 
business. The business adapts its methods to the con- 
ditions. Some business must remain, for those people 
have to live as well as the uptown and suburban people. 
But these people have both to live and to die, and 
the church has the same opportunity to save them that 
business has to serve them. If the church is to get 
them as business gets their money, politicians get their 
votes, places of amusement get their attendance, and 
the schools get their children, then it must adapt itself 
to the prevailing conditions just as other institutions 
do. And every community will have its own pecu- 
liarities, so that no one method can be of universal 
application. The church must study its own com- 
munity to find out its strength and weakness, its 
needs and viewpoints, its possibilities and perils, and 
then seriously try to put over a program that will suit 
the situation and present the gospel to them in the best 
possible way. If the commission is to **Go into all 
the world, and preach the gospel to every creature/' 
some churches will have to undertake the discipling of 
that great mass of unchurched people which other 
churches have left uncared for. It is a hard task but a 
wonderful opportunity. Such a church will be chas- 
tened with the discipline of the disagreeable, but such 
a community once won will make the church a saving 
factor with which the world must not only reckon 
but with which it will be glad to reckon, and perhaps 
cooperate. What the world wants to see is work ac- 



26 EVANGELISM 

tually done. It does not care much for ideals. Now, 
if the church can do the work by its ideals, it will get 
the world's attention and be able to show the world 
its ideals through its work. 

The Church and the Outside Man 

The church has a real interest in the outside man, 
but it has not always shown its interest by any sort of 
organized or sustained effort to reach him and win 
him, so he thinks that the church has no interest in 
him. Theoretically, the church is interested in every 
man that Jesus is interested in, and the problem is to 
show that interest by a sacrificial service as Jesus did. 
The outside man may try to crucify the church as the 
world did Jesus, but the church can no more be de- 
stroyed than Jesus could be destroyed, if it is animated 
by his spirit and he is its real Head. If the church 
really senses its evangelistic opportunity so that it now 
represents "Christianity in earnest," great work would 
be done in building the new world. All of the church 
all the time at some form of evangelistic work would 
transform the world. 

The Christian is saved to serve. Our part of that 
service is to get others to Christ and thus extend the 
kingdom of God in the world. The test by which the 
disciple of Christ is to be recognized by all men as 
given by Christ himself was, "A new commandment 
give I unto you, That ye love one another; as I have 
loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall 
all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love 
one to another" (John 13. 34, 35). Much more will all 
men recognize the Christian as Christ's man, when his 



THE PROGRAM 27 

love extends beyond his brethren, even to all men. 
Only the real Christian can love all men. It is not 
human nature to do it. Only the grace of God and the 
spirit of Christ will make it possible for the Christian 
to do it. It takes a real Christ-ruled church to give 
the poor and ignorant a real welcome and make them 
feel at home in it. That is perhaps one of the ob- 
stacles which the church has to overcome. It will have 
to reduce its theory of brotherly love to practice, yet 
that is what discipleship with Christ means. 

Pastoral Visiting 

Parish visitation both by pastor and people gives the 
church a great evangelistic opportunity too often over- 
looked both by pastor and people. It is not enough to 
merely make pastoral or social calls in a routine way. 
The parish is to be canvassed for souls with an ob- 
jective as clearly defined as when an insurance solicitor 
canvasses a community for business, or when the 
church makes an every-member canvass for money. If 
the central policy of the whole church is evangelism, all 
of its organizations will have that as their ultimate 
aim in all their activities. If parish activities empha- 
size evangelism in such a way that the aroused people 
will come to the church on Sunday and be converted, 
the Sunday evening problem will be solved. No serv- 
ice is more popular than the one in which people are 
being saved, and members of the church who have been 
diligent in sowing seed during the week will be in the 
service on Sunday evening for the harvesting of their 
sowing. That in turn will create a greater desire to 
go out next week and follow that work up till it be- 



28 EVANGELISM 

comes the habit of the church. If the prayer meeting 
is made the place of report on what is done from week 
to week, as well as for earnest prayer that greater 
works may follow, the prayer m.eeting problem will 
largely be solved. When the spiritual has the right of 
way in the church, every other interest of the church 
will best be served. 

There is great danger that in the multiplying of 
methods and the increasing of church machinery the 
spiritual, which, after all, is the conserving element, 
will be left out — a case of ''more harness than horse," 
more machine than power. This must be guarded 
against at every point. 

It is so easy to take the spiritual for granted that no 
provision will be made for it, and as a consequence the 
church becomes a club, with many excellent things it 
is true, but without saving power. In such circum- 
stances the help it brings to society is not constructive. 
It will be dealing with effects and not removing causes. 
If religion is kept an affair of Sunday only, it will not 
meet the challenge of the new age. If the church 
Christianizes the community, it will be by making re- 
ligion a matter of everyday life. Religion must enter 
into and control all human activities. The evangelistic 
policy of the church will help toward that end, by 
showing that religion is neither foreign nor hostile to 
any human interest, but, rather, that it promotes all 
real human interests. Men ought to be able to talk 
about religion as naturally as they do about the 
weather, or business, or any other human interest. If 
it is kept as something too sacred to be used, like some 
family Bibles on the musty tables of unused parlors, it 



THE PROGRAM 29 

neither will get into men's thinking nor practice, and it 
will continue as a thing apart, which may be enjoyed 
occasionally as a luxury but not practiced as a funda- 
mental rule of conduct. Men are not afraid of religion 
when they begin to live it, and to live it in the spirit 
of Christ is the best silent force for evangelism there 
is. Men of all creeds and no creeds recognize Chris- 
tianity when they see it lived. And a life of goodness 
is one argument that no man can answer. The church 
must interest itself in all the interests of the com- 
munity, and that will go a long way toward getting 
a sympathetic hearing from the community. 

Practical Religion 

A rough man who had no love for nor interest in the 
church brought his little girl to the writer's Sunday 
school, and one of the superintendents invited him 
into the school. He replied, "I don't take any stock in 
religion, but I am interested in the institution that got 
my boy a job." That Sunday school had an employ- 
ment bureau which was very successful. The Sunday 
school got a chance at the man because it got his boy 
a job. It was interested in things that were very hu- 
man. The approach must often be made through self- 
interest. It is a very important thing for the church 
to get young people work, and have an oversight of 
them in the years of their inexperience. They need a 
friend then, for it is at that time that they start on 
careers that are either right or wrong. Christ is to 
be made the King of all life. 

A splendid example of a country parish with a real 
program is The Larger Benzonia Parish, Michigan. 



30 EVANGELISM 

Three good examples of city churches that have pro- 
grams are Central Methodist Episcopal Church, De- 
troit, Michigan ; Dr. Helms's Institutional Church (Mor- 
gan Memorial), and the Old First Methodist Epis- 
copal Churchy both in Boston. In these parishes there is 
much valuable work done that is purely social and 
moral, but the objective in all the activities is the spirit- 
ual. The other things are means to an end, but the end 
is to get men rightly related to God, to bring them un- 
der the Kingship of Jesus Christ. The church that fails 
in that fails in all permanent and adequate betterment 
of mankind. If Christ only fed the multitude and healed 
the sick, and defended the weak against the strong, the 
world would remain unsaved. It would have been only 
temporarily relieved, and when his personal pressure 
was off, it would lapse back to where it was before. 
Permanent betterment in that way could only be main- 
tained by the sustained miracle of Christ's personal 
pressure on the external and material interests of man. 
His feeding and healing were means to the end that 
he might save them from sin, and bring them into 
right relations to God and man, but he did relieve tem- 
poral needs. Christ's main object was to get men 
so recreated in their personality that they would be 
capable of making a better world in which to live. That 
must be the main business of the church — to make good 
men, and good men will make a good world. To 
make good men attention must be given to the whole 
man, environment and all. The object is to save the 
whole man — not a disembodied spirit, not an upright 
animal, but a real man made in the image of God and 
destined to be a real son of God. 



THE PROGRAM 31 

The church must not be afraid of estabhshing prece- 
dents, nor of departing from old ones whenever it is 
necessary. If the old method does not get people to 
God drop it. If a new one does, no matter how much 
it may be criticized, if it really gets men to God, adopt 
it, work it, talk it up, magnify it. There is no sanc- 
tity in method. The test of the divineness of methods 
is that they work, that they produce results consistent 
with divineness. If an old method will still work, but 
has been abandoned because it was old, revive it and 
use it and silence criticism by results. A criticism that 
flies in the face of results is only fault-findings 
prompted by ignorance, prejudice, or maliciousness, 
and need not be noticed, much less answered. That 
kind of criticism answers itself in time by destroying 
itself. 

The Church the Community Center 

The efforts that are now put forth to make the 
church the community center will work great good 
for the Kingdom and be a powerful evangelistic force 
if first things are kept first. If the spiritual is kept 
foremost, nothing can stop an organized, aggressive, 
earnest church. When making a house-to-house can- 
vass of the parish with the evangelistic motive, it is easy 
to learn many important lessons of how the church can 
supplement the home. If the home has no music, yet 
has music lovers; or if there are no books, but book 
lovers; if the members of the home work but have no 
wholesome recreation, that is the church's opportunity 
through some of its organizations, and in some of its 



32 EVANGELISM 

rooms, to furnish the things that are lacking in the 
home. That is good religion as well as good social 
service. 

A good way to the soul of a boy or man is to get his 
body to the church. His sense of obligation for value 
received often will make him, at the proper time, ap- 
proachable on the matter of religion. A church whose 
habit is to minister to the highest needs of men will 
not have to go out of its way to make religion the fore- 
most matter. People will expect it and will not feel im- 
posed upon when it is presented to them, for that is 
what the church is doing all the time, and everybody 
knows it. The church is consistent with itself. If, 
however, the church is interested in spiritual matters 
only one month in the year sufficiently to put forth 
systematic efforts to reach people during that one 
month, it is easy and natural to construe such efforts as 
baits to get people to church in order to thrust religion 
at them. Such action is not a genuine expression of 
the church's interest in their everyday lives. That is 
always the danger of the spasmodic efforts. The com- 
munity looks upon them as high-pressure methods to 
get people into the church for its own sake rather to 
get them to God for their own sake. The church with 
a constant evangelistic policy and program never has to 
apologize for its method nor explain why, at occasional 
seasons only, the spiritual is put forward. People will 
be converted right along in such a church in its most 
normal activity. The older notion of evangelism, which 
meant the salvation of the soul from sin, that taught 
that the sanctification of the soul lay in the mortifica- 
tion of the body, tended to narrow the scope of the 



THE PROGRAM 33 

church's activity. The revival was the only evangel- 
istic effort of the year. 

Everyday Evangelism 

But the modern view of evangelism, which cares for 
the salvation of the soul as much as the older form 
did, and in addition cares for the redemption of the 
body, the home, the business, the recreation — in a word, 
the whole life of man in all its interests and relations, 
which the older form often did not, widens the scope 
of evangelism and gives vastly more points of contact 
with the man on the outside. It shows a far more 
minute interest in him, and thus increases in a very 
large degree evangelistic opportunity. A man is not 
apt to think much about his soul when he cannot feed 
his family. The evangelistic approach to that man 
will not be a call to repent of his sins. It will issue 
in that, but he must be approached along the line of 
need that is most real and pressing to him from his 
viewpoint. It may be said that the evangelist must 
bring the man to his point of view before he can be , 
saved. That is true enough, because the man's own 
point of view did not save him. But before the evan- 
gelist can get a frank, unbiased hearing from the man 
he must meet him on his own ground. Having won 
his confidence by sympathy, he can lead him to higher 
things, but he cannot lift him to higher things if the 
man feels that the evangeHst is in another world and 
does not understand him nor care for him or his 
world. 

The time was when the evangehstic effort was made 
to save men's souls. It must now be made to save their 



34 EVANGELISM 

lives. Salvation is a much larger thing than the for- 
giveness of sins. The forgiveness of sins, however, is 
basic to all else that is done; but that forgiveness must 
issue in the moral action that involves all the life in 
its individual and collective expression. 

There is a sort of undefined life that we call com- 
munity life, or crowd life, that is more than the sum 
total of all the individual lives. It seems to be a 
case of "The whole is more than the sum of all its 
parts.'' But the community life which seems to be in 
excess of the sum of all the individual lives that make 
up the community is a life that is not apparently a part 
of any individual life. It is a sort of atmosphere of 
the whole. That atmosphere must be wholesome, or 
religious life cannot flourish in it. That atmosphere 
is produced by many things as subtle as itself in their 
workings. Food, clothing, wages, housing, recreation 
all play an important part in the religious life of a com- 
munity — indeed, in the life of the individual. Religion 
is hfe's expression at its best. No life can be at its 
best which is underfed or overfed, badly housed, over- 
worked, which is not properly and comfortably clothed, 
and which has no time nor desire for natural and 
wholesome recreation or worship. It takes some de- 
gree of comfort to put men in a frame of mind com- 
patible with worship. Formerly too little attention was 
paid to this group of human necessities in the matter of 
religion. If a man's sins were forgiven and his past 
made right with God, that was all that was necessary 
even though his present life was economically and so- 
cially intolerable. A person must be comfortable and 
free from constant anxiety in order to have a natural 



THE PROGRAM 35 

and hopeful view of life. The lack of that sort of life 
put great emphasis on the hope of heaven, and men 
longed to get out of the miseries of this world and 
be at rest in heaven. To-day we must try to drive as 
much misery as we can out of this world and make it 
a decent and happy place in which to live, and so make 
religion more of a present joy and power than a future 
hope. Hope ought never to go out of the other life, 
nor joy out of this life. This world ought to be made 
so good and life so worth while that people would not 
want to die in order to get rid of tragedies, nor to get 
out of the world in which living conditions were un- 
bearable. 

Evangelism must aim at establishing the kingdom of 
God here in the earth. We ought to want to live as 
long and serve as well as we can. That is what a 
wholesome religion will fit men to do. Men must get 
rid of all morbid notions of religion. Our Father God 
wills only best things for us, and we must will and 
work best things for one another. So religion must 
sanctify all relationships. Under a true conception of 
brotherhood no man would wrong another, nor even 
desire to wrong him. 

It means a good deal more to a community to have 
a revival in it than just to throw open the doors of 
the church for a few weeks and have a large number 
of people converted, and yet leave untouched most of 
the unwholesome conditions and institutions of the 
community. Such revival activity permits many, if 
not most, of the converts to lapse into a state that 
makes them harder to reach than they were at first. 
People sometimes talk as though social evangelism and 



36 EVANGELISM 

spiritual evangelism were two different things. Any 
evangelism that deals with the whole life must com- 
bine the two. All evangelism is spiritual, and it may 
be personal and social. An evangelism that does not 
better the community is not worth while. It is time 
for us to put more emphasis on the permanent results of 
evangelistic efforts. 

In helping to rebuild the world, evangelism has its 
greatest opportunity and also its greatest task. If the 
church has been discounted by the war, it must be rein- 
stated in the love and confidence of the world by the 
scope, worth, and efficiency of its evangelistic pro- 
gram. Life must be brought to its best. 

If men on the outside look askance at the church, 
it is either because they misunderstand its functions 
or else because they think it is not interested in them. 
If they think that the whole business of the church is 
to champion their material interests, that it is to be in- 
terested only in wages, and rent and food, then they do 
not understand it. The church has a far bigger business 
than that in the world. On the other hand, if the 
church has looked upon the man on the outside as a 
soul that needs to be saved, and not a whole man who 
needs to be redeemed and saved to the best there is for 
him in this world and in any other world, unless it deals 
with him as a man in his entirety, then the church mis- 
understands the man. 

One of the very serious problems that the church has 
to face is when a boy or girl from a bad home becomes 
a Christian. Sometimes that one Christian will Chris- 
tianize the whole household, but it too often happens 
that the Christian life withers and dies in such an un- 



THE PROGRAM 



Z7 



favorable environment. The social aspect of the evan- 
gelism which saves the boy or girl transforms the 
home. So of the factory or store. We live a life of 
interdependence, and never more so than now, and we 
will never revert to the old-fashioned life of independ- 
ence. We shall become more and more interdepend- 
ent, and we must reckon with that in our evangelistic 
work. Human solidarity must be reckoned with more 
than ever in any attempt to better the world. Society 
cannot continue to have apoplexy at the head and 
anemia at the feet — extravagant luxury and despair- 
ing poverty in those extremities of the social body — 
and the world still have a good life, or the church a fair 
chance. 

The Individual and the Crowd 

Of course the individual must never be lost in the 
mass, or all will be lost. You can no more have 
a successful crowd result without attention to 
the individual than you can have a crop of 
corn if the individual stalks do not produce 
ears. There is no such thing as a crop apart from the 
individual ears. The crop is a very concrete thing. 
Your crowd result will be no more potent if the in- 
dividual is left out of the account. But individual 
betterment must be carried on so widely and wisely 
that it will issue in social betterment. Unrelated and 
ungrouped individuals will do little toward bettering 
society or bringing in the Kingdom. Each for all and 
all for each must always be the law, in the large, of 
the Kingdom. 

The prophets were national figures. They preached 



38 EVANGELISM 

a national gospel, they pleaded for national righteous- 
ness, they denounced national sin; but they also dealt 
with individuals in a most direct way. The apostles 
too in a way were national figures, but their nation 
was the kingdom of God. Nothing can be more prac- 
tical, nor of greater social moment than the teaching of 
Paul in First and Second Corinthians, Ephesians, First 
and Second Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, where he 
shows the practical bearing of religion on every phase 
of individual and corporate life and duty. The great 
evangelists were interested in folks. 

The law of love, which is the law of the Kingdom, 
has an upward and outward application — upward to 
God and outward to man. They go together. In 
this type of evangelism extremists will have little in- 
terest. To one class of extremists it will not be re- 
ligious enough; to the other class it will be too re- 
ligious to be either acceptable or effective. One class 
would rather see ten people sanctified than one hun- 
dred converted, and the other would rather see ten 
people fed or have their wages increased than one hun- 
dred converted. But an evangelism that deals with 
the whole man will be interested in food, wages, con- 
version, and sanctification. And what is aimed at for 
the individual man is aimed at for the whole com- 
munity. The effort is to get the will of God done, and 
God's ideal for human life realized in the earth, rather 
than to build up any church or other institution, which 
will only be a temporary expedient. As far as the 
church realizes this Kingdom ideal, it ceases to be a 
temporary expedient and becomes a permanent factor 
in the betterment of mankind, and is indispensable to 



THE PROGRAM 39 

the good of the race. Such a church the world must 
have, and when it arrives the world will cease to say 
the days of the church are numbered. 

It aims at making all human relations — reHgious, 
domestic, social, economic, political, national, and in- 
ternational — right. Its aim is not so much to get 
people to do some religious work, but to do all work 
religiously. That is a large program, but it is the 
only program that seems adequate to the needs of the 
world. Better men and women in a better world — that 
is the aim. 

The evangelist must be prophet, teacher, statesman, 
patriot, and Christian, and no irresponsible group of 
small prejudiced people under the name "evangelist** 
ought to be allowed to usurp his place. They can't 
take his place and fill it. At most they usurp it. The 
standards of evangelism must be so high that only the 
best, most brotherly, most sacrificial men will go into it 
as a profession. That will give the pastor the best 
help when he needs it and will put before him an ideal 
toward which he will be constantly striving. The 
habit that prevails in some quarters of making the 
minister whom the churches do not want and the' 
cabinet cannot place Conference evangelist is a ver}^ 
doubtful church policy. He cheapens evangelism and , 
discourages young ministers from being known as 
evangelistic pastors. The whole thing is discredited. 
If he is good for nothing else, to make an evangelist 
out of him is bad. If he is too big for anything else, 
give him the biggest thing there is, the position of pas- 
tor-evangelist, or evangelistic pastor. The man who 
sees the size and the greatness of an evangelism which 



40 EVANGELISM 

actually brings in the kingdom of God, and gets God's 
will done in the earth, is in the biggest, most perma- 
nent, and most important work in the world. To get 
all the will of God done in all human affairs is the 
master work of the world. This evangelism may 
climax in a few weeks' meeting, for a harvesting time, 
but it goes on the whole year through, and there is no 
part of the community that does not feel its power. It 
centers in the church, but it radiates to all the com- 
munity. 

Constructive Evangelism 

The evangelistic attitude must be positive and con- 
structive. It is not enough to tell men that they must 
give up their sin and quit the haunts of evildoing, 
and then leave them in the same old environment with 
nothing to do except follow a very indefinite sugges- 
tion — "Serve the Lord." That does not mean much 
to a man just up out of sin, for he does not know how 
to serve the Lord. He hopes some day to get to 
heaven and away from the temptation and torment of 
the things in which he once lived, but his home 
and his neighborhood and his neighbors and his 
employment are all against him. The negative policy 
is not sufficient. Indeed, the church has put too much 
emphasis on its "don'ts'' and too little on its "do-es.'* 
The negative emphasis would not have been too great 
had it been properly balanced by the positive. 

Our missionaries w^ould have very small success if 
they did no more to reconstruct the whole life of their 
converts than we do here at home. The missionaries 
build for their converts a whole new world. They 



THE PROGRAM 41 

must create a new environment in which the new life 
can develop and propagate itself. Their program, 
where it is most successful, is a cooperative and con- 
structive program. The home life and industrial life 
of these new Christians are very vital matters with the 
missionary. The evangelistic work is only just begun 
when the conversion is secured. With us it often ends 
just there. (But more of this in the chapter where 
the culture of the Christian is considered.) 

Whether at home or on the foreign field, the drive of 
a positive gospel which is made urgent under the lead- 
ership of Jesus Christ is one of the most controlling 
and compelling factors in evangelism. This city must 
be saved ; this man must be reached ; this evil must be 
suppressed. That will give everybody something to 
do, and being united in a common work for human 
weal and being urged by a devotion to Jesus Christ 
will cement them together in a real brotherhood as 
nothing else will. They serve their own best interest 
when they promote the interest of everybody else. The 
Christian must be as aggressive with the Spirit as the 
Mohammedan is with the sword. Evangelism must 
be aggressive. 

The time was when all sorts of people would come 
to the church when the revival was on. That is not 
true in any large way to-day. Now the revival must 
go where the people are if they will not come to it. 
Under the compelling power of moral urgency which 
expressed itself in Christ's life by the rugged word 
"must," the evangelistic message must be delivered, and 
the evangelistic program must be carried out. As 
some one has said, "The best defense is a vigorous at- 



42 EVANGELISM 

tack'' ; so of the church — when it ceases to be aggres- 
sive it ceases to be powerful. 

The love of Christ is the controlhng motive in evan- 
gelism. It is that love for men which Christ had that 
creates the moral urgency of the church. Of course 
there is always in the background the instinct of self- 
preservation. The church knows if it cannot Chris- 
tianize the world, the world will paganize the church. 
But this fight for self-preservation is not the compel- 
ling motive. The church which has caught Christ's 
spirit will love men for their own sakes enough to 
spend and be spent for their salvation. After Paul's 
great climax in Rom. 8. 33-39 he confesses that he 
has a continual pain in his heart because Israel is not 
saved. Again, he said that he could wish himself ac- 
cursed if only that would mean the salvation of his 
brethren. See Rom. 9. 1-3. It is that passion which sent 
Christ to the cross and the martyrs to their death that 
must dominate the minister if he is ever to be a great 
evangelist. But he must feel the same compassion for 
hungry, tired, and wronged people that Christ did, and 
with Christ's fine indignation strike every institution of 
human oppression and ruin like a thunderbolt. That is 
the kind of evangelism that a greed-loving, ease-living, 
sin-loving age like this needs. 

But the men ''higher up" need the gospel too, and it 
takes far more courage to break social conventions, to 
go to them and say, ''Thou art the man," than it does 
to found a rescue mission for the "scum of the city." 
Very often it is because the men "higher up" in wealth 
and culture and power are not evangelized, that there 
are so many who are "down and out." They may be 



THE PROGRAM 43 

running "down and out'' factories. These men are 
hard to reach because of their social station and finan- 
cial protection. But evangelism takes no note of these -^ 
artificial distinctions which separate men. Its business 
is to get all men to do the will of God in all things, i 
Men on the avenue as well as men in the alleys need 
to know that Jesus is King, and is King of all life, 
all relations, all properties, all institutions. If the tene- 
ments need the gospel, so do the mansions, and the more 
the mansions are evangelized the easier it will be to 
evangelize the tenements. The tenement group think 
the evangelist is afraid of the mansion group. 

The problems cannot be solved by the closet phil- 
osopher, nor by the drawing-room saint. They must 
be solved by prophets "who fear nothing but God and 
hate nothing but sin,'' who will not count their lives 
dear to them if they can only build this world into the 
kingdom of God, where righteousness, peace, and good 
will, are to be the dominant forces in human society. 

God's plan for the world is his kingdom. It is his 
method of bringing in that kingdom and administering 
it through human agency cooperating with him that 
gives the moral urgency to evangelism. It is a posi- 
tive, constructive, courageous, unselfish, powerful 
agency for the rebuilding of the world in righteousness 
and holiness. 

Consistent Goodness 

But a world cannot be made righteous or holy with- 
out making individuals righteous and holy. These are 
personal qualities. They must be concrete to be effec- 
tive. One of the practical difiiculties that evangelism 



44 EVANGELISM 

faces is that between private and public goodness or 
badness, between personal and corporate righteousness 
and unrighteousness. A man may be righteous and 
just and kind in his direct personal actions with in- 
dividuals, and be above reproach in his private life, 
yet as a stockholder or director his vote may mean op- 
pression and injustice to a large group of men and 
women whom he never saw. He would not wrong one 
of them if he were dealing privately and individually 
with them, yet he votes to cut down wages, or to refuse 
to improve living conditions for the sake of larger 
dividends on his investment. His indirect action may 
belie his personal conduct. So too a man may be a 
rascal in his private conduct, rob the community to 
get his money, and be unbearable in his home, yet in 
his public benefactions, in making parks, playgrounds, 
founding hospitals, helping schools, etc., he may be 
above reproach. Now evangelism is to make both of 
these types of men consistent with themselves, so that 
the one class would no more indirectly do a wrong to 
people they do not know than they would by direct 
action wrong people whom they do know. And the 
other class make their private integrity agree with their 
public munificence and benefactions. 

Holiness and righteousness, as personal qualities, 
must extend to all deeds and to all relations. A good 
community must be made up of good men and good 
women who are consistent and constant in their good- 
ness. There may a sort of abstract goodness that 
belongs to society as a whole, and that may be a very 
potent factor in social salvation, but that will not exist 
in the absence of concrete goodness. There are a social 



THE PROGRAM 45 

consciousness and also a social conscience, just as 
there are social action and what is called public senti- 
ment. But there is hardly that which could be called a 
social personality. Society may be thought of as a 
body, but hardly as a person, that is, individual. The 
end of evangelism is the perfection of God-filled and 
God-ruled personality, and any program that does not 
have that as an end will not be adequate or final. A 
saved social order will conserve individual salvation, 
and individual salvation makes for a social order. 

Saving the Whole Man 

Evangelism must not lose sight of the fact that a 
man must be saved in his entirety if his salvation is to 
be of permanent worth to himself or to the world. It 
is the man who stays saved who helps the world; the 
man who keeps his head cool, his heart warm, his body 
strong, his hands clean, his sympathies broad, and keeps 
hopeful and busy who helps the world the most. It 
is to save men like that that the evangelistic plea is 
made. That cannot be done in a minute. Every bet- 
tered individual helps to make a better social order, 
and in every bettered social order it is easier to better 
individuals. Men hope for a perfect society some day, 
but not here ; they look for it in heaven. That white- 
robed throng that cannot be numbered, who will not 
hunger, thirst, toil, suffer, or die any more, is in heaven, 
but we must realize as much of perfect society here as 
possible. There will be hunger and suffering and 
death, but hunger can be constantly lessened, and suf- 
fering mitigated, and death itself will cease to be 
feared, when men will live so well and so long that 



46 EVANGELISM 

death comes at last as a glorious promotion. Instead 
of the death day being a day of gloom it will be a day 
of triumph. That is the Christian's sense of death. 

There is needed the coordination and cooperation of 
all the good forces iii the world to help realize the king- 
dom of God. Too often constructive forces for good 
have been competitive, and worse still, antagonistic, in a 
community, while the destructive forces of evil were 
cooperative. Sin made its conquest while the forces 
for good were quarreling about methods of defense. 

Evangelists have sometimes tried to make capital for 
themselves by denouncing the church, and never ap- 
pearing to see that the very churches which they de- 
nounce gave them their living and the only standing 
they have, and the moral influence of the church in 
the world carries them when they could not stand an 
hour on their own merit. 

Much has been ably written on social and group 
salvation, but nothing must be thought of as a sub- 
stitute for the bringing of the individual into right 
relations with God. The permanence of all religious 
work at last rests back on that. We may differ as to 
method, but the objective must be the same — to make 
man the type of man God meant him to be. We cannot 
deal with unrelated units nor with unindividuated 
masses. The mass in large part makes the individual 
what he is, but the individual helps to make the mass 
what it is. 



CHAPTER III 

GENERAL METHODS 

Our methods must vary according to our communi- 
ties and the classes of people and ages with which we 
deal. Some workers seem to care more for the method 
than they do for the result. If any man is saved by 
another method than theirs, they doubt the genu- 
ineness of his salvation. They overlook the fact that 
the life, the character of the individual, is the final test 
of the genuineness of the change that has taken place. 
If he is, as Paul says, ''a new creation'' in Christ, what 
difference does it make how he became so ? It is folly 
to expect the same religious reaction in a boy of twelve 
who never went into sin as in a man of forty who has 
been in the gutter. Yet some folks seem to reason 
that way. To cause a child of nine to weep over gross 
sins as a condition of conversion is not only morbid 
but wicked. To cause a little child to be afraid of 
God is barbarous. To bring up children to fear their 
father is a perversion of family life. It is bad in 
family life and worse in religion. 

Skill in Approach 

The method of approach to individuals or groups 
must be along the most natural lines, along lines that 
will not prejudice the people we seek against us in 

47 



48 EVANGELISM 

advance. It is a discouraging thing to try to appeal to 
a closed mind, and doubly so when your message as 
well as your person is discounted before you begin. 
Men and women must be won, not coaxed, cajoled, or 
frightened into the Christian life. 

To be a successful fisherman one must not only 
know the general habits of fish but the particular habits 
of the kind for which he is now fishing; the habitat, 
the bait, the time of year, the time of day, whether 
or not they go in schools, etc. All this enters into the 
common-sense training of a fisherman. Now, men 
ought to use the same kind of common sense when 
they become fishers of men. Jesus chose his twelve 
apostles that he might teach them how to become fishers 
of men. They had to learn how\ In some places the 
evangelistic m.ethods of fifty years ago will not work 
at all. Changed conditions of living must be met by 
changed methods or the people will not be reached. 

The same methods cannot be employed in college 
evangelism as would be in a rescue mission. The 
evangelistic pastor must cultivate powers of adaptabil- 
ity, so as to adjust the methods to the occasion. In the 
appeal the power of suggestion must be used with great 
skill, especially when dealing with young people, such 
as one would have in Sunday school, where whole 
classes are apt to act as groups, with little individual 
initiative or judgment. While all that is helpful in 
group consciousness and action must be conserved and 
utilized, the religious decision itself must be intelligent, 
deliberate, and personal. While you may get group 
action, there must be individual decision, for religion 
is the right relation of the individual to God with all 



GENERAL METHODS 49 

its social bearings and implications. Religious action 
as class action in Sunday school evangelism that does 
not issue in permanent decisions and also in permanent 
personal religious activity is apt to be harmful. The 
lapses from revivals do the church and evangelism in 
general great harm. Any method that leads to super- 
ficial work does as much harm as good, perhaps more. 
The backslider is generally far more dangerous to the 
cause of religion than the original sinner. Every- 
body knows the attitude of the original sinner, but the 
backslider discredits religion by creating the impres- 
sion that he tried it and found there was nothing to 
it. He is apt to be more cynical toward religion than 
the original sinner in order to justify himself in giving 
it up. He wants to create the impression that the 
fault was with religion, not with himself. He would 
rather have the world think that religion was a sham 
than that he was. It is far easier for him to declare 
that the church or religion is a failure than to admit 
or confess that he himself is undependable. 

Emphasizing the Spiritual 

The church and the evangelist must be above sus- 
picion if the community is to be successfully reached 
not merely during the revival but the whole year 
through. No method that has a trick in it will long 
succeed, and no evangelist who is known to be tricky 
in his methods will be trusted by the sensible man on 
the outside. If the church is not absolutely above- 
board in all its methods, it will not have the confidence 
of the community. The church must show itself the 
friend of the outside man eleven months in the year 



50 EVANGELISM 

when the revival is not on, as well as the one month 
that it is on. It is for want of just that one thing that 
the one month is often a failure. Religion cannot be 
spasmodic. It must be constant to wear down opposi- 
tion by siege as well as to break it down by assault. 
A church that condones or ignores community abuses 
for eleven months, and then attacks them violently for 
one month, cannot make the world believe that it is 
seriously in earnest. Consistency is always an im- 
portant factor in efficiency. If meetings are held on the 
street where are all nationaHties and creeds — and no 
creeds meet — one needs to show the practical results of 
religion in human welfare and happiness rather than to 
present abstract doctrines, upon which men differ so 
widely, and about which the vast majority of men know 
so little, however valuable such presentation may be 
in the church. The trouble with the mass of men out 
of the church is that they think in terms of the mate- 
rial. They must be met on that ground to get a hear- 
ing, but they must not be left on that ground. An 
evangelism which is only social and industrial will 
never permanently meet the needs of the world. Men 
must be brought to God. The lines of approach may 
differ widely, but they must focus in God. If men 
will not come to the church, the church must go to 
them. That statement may be trite, but it is funda- 
mental. For the most part the men will not come to 
the church. The church too often when that stage is 
reached, sells out and moves away where its old con- 
stituents have gone. That leaves the man on the street 
unchurched; and, worse than that, it leaves him with 
the feeling that the church cares nothing about him 



GENERAL METHODS 51 

and has gone off and left him. Of course he does not 
think the thing through. If he did, he would see that 
if he only had been fair to the church and met it half- 
way, it would not have had to move out. He ought 
not to expect the church to come all the way all the 
time, and when he has proved himself hopeless to the 
church to blame it for not keeping forever at him when 
hf does not intend to be fair is unreasonable. 

Of course this means that the church is on the job 
and is interested in all the life problems of the com- 
munity. If a churchman works his men seven days in 
the week, or six days so hard that he exhausts them, 
he must not blame them for not liking the church or 
attending it. They ought not to judge the whole church 
by him, nor condemn the church in all places because 
in a given place a man misrepresents the real spirit 
of the church of which he is a member, and much 
more the church at large; but they do. That is the 
perversity of human nature, and all folks have some of 
it — indeed, too much of it to permit their judgment 
to be fair, or even trustworthy, in these general con- 
demnations. If the man on the outside finds one hypo- 
crite in the church, he says, '*Well, they are all alike,'' 
and for that statement he will be applauded. If the 
church should say because there is a murder among the 
men on the outside, "Well, they are all alike,'' he 
would strongly resent it, but it would be just as fair. 

A church interested in the redemption of men all 
the time will not find it difficult to convince them that 
it is interested any time. Pious words unaccompanied 
by pious deeds will not long be effective. Pious deeds 
are always mighty in their effective eloquence. Some 



52 EVANGELISM 

one has said, in substance, that a loaf of bread is under- 
stood in all languages. Jesus made large use of the 
eloquence of deeds, but his feeding and healing were 
always means, not ends. The end was to get men 
rightly related to God. He is our Master Evangelist. 
It will not be hard to follow his method if we once 
catch his spirit. 

Spiritual Needs 

The trouble with most men is that they are blind to 
their spiritual need, and they translate their hunger 
for God in terms of the material, and blame the church 
if it does not do so too. The church must be patient 
with these blind and hungry folks, and not get discour- 
aged if it cannot reveal God to them at once. The 
really evangelistic church represents God in action 
among men, and the resulting revival is man's response 
to that acting God. God seems too far off to the average 
man in the church, and much more so to the man out- 
side of the church. To the men out of the church 
God does not know, in which case they don't trust 
him ; or he cannot help, in which case they do not need 
him; or he does not care, then they do not want him. 
Evangelism is to make men feel that God is right here 
in his world, knowing, helping, caring. The outside 
man's environment is not favorable to spiritual sensi- 
tiveness, but many of the noblest souls come to spirit- 
ual vision and power in spite of environment. Jacob 
Riis is a good example, and though he said that envi- 
ronment counted ninety-nine per cent in the slums, he 
showed that, though he was in the slums, environment 
was not ninety-nine per cent with him ; nor has it been 



GENERAL METHODS 53 

so with many another. But it is a powerful factor and 
has to be reckoned with in evangelism. To be effective 
the whole church must be active, the laity as well as 
the clergy. The Christian is saved to serve. The whole 
Christian community is called to evangelism. That 
makes it democratic and effective. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE MESSAGE (GENERAL) 

Dealing Frankly with Sin 

The type of sermon will depend on the class of 
people to whom the message is delivered. Its point 
must be a call to God, to a life of righteousness, to 
a break with sin. Any evangelistic message that is 
afraid to be frank and fearless will fail. Men high 
and low must give up sin. He that steals must steal 
no more. He that oppresses must oppress no more. 
He that shirks must shirk no more. It must be a 
rightabout face, or else he will be marking time. 
Glossing over sin does not even please the sinner. He 
may say it does, but in his heart he despises such a 
message. He knows sin in its horrible nakedness, and 
he would condemn the preacher who tries to make it 
harmless or lovely. Sin is horrible, and the sinner 
knows it even when he likes it. He would not have his 
mother or sister or wife do what he does for the 
world. He despises it, yet likes it and commits it, 
but the preacher cannot fool him by glossing it over. 
He does not ring true when he does so. Nothing 
shakes the confidence in his preacher with the thinking 
man more than to hear him violently attack the sins 
of the people who are not present and ignore the sins 
of those who are; or to be severe with the little sin- 
ners back under the gallery, and gentle with the big 

54 



THE MESSAGE (GENERAL) 55 

sinners up in the middle aisle, as he puts it. Courage 
must be consistent. 

The preacher who deals with sin successfully must 
deal with it impartially, and that means that he must 
not be afraid of a purse, an office, or an organization. 
If he attacks capital when it is wrong, he must attack 
labor when it is wrong. The man who renders a 
pittance work for a good day's wage is as mean and 
dishonest as the man who gives a pittance wage for a 
good day's work. They are equally and inexcusably 
dishonest and unbrotherly. Neither practices either 
the Christian ideal or the Christian ethics. 

The true evangelist strikes at sin and wrong with a 
courage and consistency which leaves no doubt in the 
minds of those who hear that a prophet has spoken. 
He will strike at individual and collective sins with 
equal fearlessness, yet he must not be vindictive. His 
indignation may blaze out in fury against all forms of 
wrong, whether that wrong strikes up or down. But 
he must also point the refuge in the love of a saving 
God. He is God's messenger with a call to life on his 
lips. That call will turn to judgment only when it is 
refused. 

Preachers must have the rugged courage and direct- 
ness of John the Baptist, but also the tenderness and 
sympathy of Jesus. It is only when men are warmed 
by the sympathy and softened by the tenderness of 
Jesus that they can speak effectively on the awful 
matter of judgment. No man with a cold heart or 
bitter feeling can speak on the terrible judgment of 
unrepented sin without being brutal, and brutality al- 
ways defeats itself, whether it is in gospel evangehsm 



56 EVANGELISM 

or prison administration or in the prosecution of war. 
And when the pulpit made God a monster of brutahty 
some people were frightened into the Kingdom, but 
that type of preaching had to die, and rightly so. 
Love's punishment is only a last resort after all else 
fails. It is only the man who will not be moved and 
won by the love of God that must be faced with the 
judgment of God. But the gospel is so manifold that 
it appeals to all cases. Men must face their sins and 
forsake them and yield themselves in absolute obedi- 
ence to the will and rule of God, or there will be no 
permanent religious life that will issue in anything 
worth while. As before mentioned, evangelism must 
be constructive. Men must not only see the life of 
sin they are to be saved from but the worthwhileness 
of the life they are to be saved to. Evangelism often 
has failed by only showing what men are to be saved 
from. That will give them gratitude, but they must 
be shown what they are saved to. That will give them 
incentive. The one gives sentiment, the other, motive. 
Both are needed. Many do not see the need of becom- 
ing Christians if it only means a change of belief at 
a few points, and a little personal comfort ; but to show 
them that it is a challenge to the brightest life and to 
most unselfish service for the world's uplift, is 
another thing. It is a life worth while even if there 
were no hereafter. The greatness and rightness and 
usefulness of the Christian life is the major evan- 
gelistic appeal. To show young people how they can 
invest their powers in some noble and worthy life 
service will go much farther toward winning them 
than any terrors of judgment which will assail them 



THE MESSAGE (GENERAL) 57 

if they do not repent. For death and judgment seem 
unreal and distant to most young people, especially 
those we reach in colleges and churches; and, indeed, 
not much headway is made with the other less cultured 
class of young people, who have to dodge a police- 
man, if God is made an infinite policeman who can- 
not be avoided. It gives them an unnatural and mor- 
bid conception of God. Their religion will be apt to 
express itself in either cringing or defiant forms, and 
that does not help them to win others, except perhaps 
a few of their own class. 

God demands justice, righteousness, goodness and 
service among men. That cannot be stressed too 
strongly. Men cannot wait until after death to enjoy 
or employ their goodness. That must be done here 
and now, and the hereafter will take care of itself. 
Life must be right to-day. But God will put all the 
love and grace at man's disposal that he needs, if he 
will submit himself to the rule of God. The Old Testa- 
ment prophets insisted that men should do righteously 
now. See Isaiah i, Amos 5, Micah 6. The nation, or 
as we would say to-day, society, must be clean, rever- 
ent, merciful, just and God-loving and man-loving 
now; not in the far off ''Day of the Lord'' which 
was their Golden Age. They were often discouraged 
at the meagerness and slowness of the response they 
received. So they saw that judgment would have to 
precede that Golden Age, for the people would neither 
love God nor be just to one another. But it was, 
''Choose you this day whom ye will serve.'' There 
must be righteousness in the earth. Men of later time 
forgot that and urged men to be saved that they might 



58 EVANGELISM 

get to heaven at last. The old Hebrews expected 
heaven down here in the "day of the Lord." Life then 
would be lived in its entirety in the will of God. "Thy 
kingdom come'' does not mean that people should die 
and go to heaven, but to get the will of God done 
down here as it is done in heaven. That Lord's Prayer 
is a great evangelistic message, or several messages. 
It means the rule of God in the earth. That would 
bring about a real brotherhood of man. 

Impartial Ministry 

In the regular ministry, or in evangelism in the 
more restricted sense, the minister must not be partisan, 
but the champion of right and justice and goodness. 
He must represent God. If he is arrayed against one 
side, it is because it is wrong; if he is for the other 
side, it is because it is right. People will soon find 
that out, and if they want to be on his side, or have 
him on theirs, they must "true up" with the right. 
That is the best compliment that can ever be paid to a 
minister. If men want him to champion their cause, 
whether that be capital or labor, they must be on the 
right side of the issue. The rights of labor are as 
sacred as the rights of capital, but no more so. Rights 
are rights, no matter which side they are on. In this 
case they are on both sides, and much of the difficulty 
which has arisen is because neither side recognized 
the rights of the other. The preacher must be the 
friend of both if he would win both, and he must be 
equally frank and fair with both. If men say it is 
impossible, then right living is impossible. It is simply 



THE MESSAGE (GENERAL) 59 

a rule of right living. It is practiced fairly well in 
every well-ordered and happy home. It is the rule 
of brotherhood. The goal of evangelism is to get 
that done, but it will be slow work if the only way to 
get it done will be by adding one individual to another. 
The Golden Rule is like the disarmament of nations 
—easy and simple if all nations would agree to it. But 
the nation that does it alone puts itself at the mercy 
of all unscrupulous nations that do not do it. So 
one man who practices the Golden Rule alone in a 
community where no one else does, is the victim of all 
designing and dishonest people. 

So social evangelism comes in again to quicken the 
social conscience, so that at least a large part of the 
community, by mutual agreement, could make the 
Golden Rule effective and profitable in practice. It 
must be prompted by love to God and love to man in 
a sincere desire to practice goodness. 

Repentance may seem like an old-fashioned doctrine, 
but it is fundamental in evangelism; it must be 
preached. If men are asked to do less than re- 
pent, their salvation may be no more than a good reso- 
lution. This, of course, is not expected of chil- 
dren who never have been consciously hostile to God, 
but to men who have either ignored or defied God 
repentance is fundamental. But repentance is more 
than a revulsion of feeling. It is a change of mind and 
will. It is complete change of personal attitude from 
indifference or disobedience to God to a glad and 
whole-hearted obedience to God. There must be that 
new attitude before there can be salvation. It is a 
change of life's direction, and that change of direction 



6o EVANGELISM 

will change both the motive and the content of life. 
It will move toward God. Its center will be a love 
center, not a self center. When man changes from a 
wrong attitude toward God to a right attitude, God 
meets that repentant man and changes his nature by 
grace, forgiving him and accepting him into sonship, 
and liberating in him a spiritual force that will enable 
him to live the life on a new center, move in the new 
direction, and have the new content. He is a new 
creation in Christ. 

The evangelistic message must possess not less than 
this, but it must also add that this new life must begin 
at once to express itself in service. Only so can it 
keep moving Godward. God and man now cooperate, 
not only in the building of character but in the ren- 
dering of service. 

Faith and Action 

Repentance and faith are two requisites to salvation. 
But faith is more than intellectual belief or assent. 
Faith in the Christian sense — indeed, in the New Testa- 
ment sense — is very vital and very personal. It in- 
volves three things — namely, confidence in, love for, 
and obedience to a Person; that is, the Person Jesus 
Christ. This complete change in a man's life may ex- 
press itself in various ways, but where there is a genu- 
ine conversion the reality of it must be there. The 
evangelistic message must be very specific in its in- 
struction as well as urgent in its appeal. Men must 
be made to see what it is to become a Christian, and 
what the Christian life involves after one becomes a 
Christian. If all things are to go on as they did before 



THE MESSAGE (GENERAL) 6i 

except the mere accident of church membership, 
nothing worth while has been done. It is not difficult 
to accept creeds intellectually, but to trust, love, and 
obey a Person is something far different and more 
vital. ''Do you believe the doctrines of the church?'' 
is not as important a question as ''Will you do the will 
of God?'' "Will you keep the rules of the church?" 
is not as important as "Do you love and will you fol- 
low Christ?" "Will you give your money to support 
the gospel?" is not so important as "Will you give 
yourself to God, to help make this a better world and 
get God's will done in it?" These are important mat- 
ters to make clear when presenting the gospel for 
immediate decision. It is not to put the minimum of 
what must be done to escape judgment, but what is 
the maximum that can be done to please God and help 
men. 

Evangelism a Maximum Business 

Evangelism is not in the minimum business, but in 
the maximum business of helping to establish the king- 
dom of God in the earth. Present the biggest motive 
possible for men to become Christians. It is a chal- 
lenge to character and service, not an escape from 
penalty. Here at home the pagan must be shown a 
whole new life and a whole new world, just as well as 
in non-Christian countries. The Christian life must 
be shown to be the biggest, greatest, and best life in 
the world. It needs no defense. It needs definition 
and proclamation. It will stand on its own merits. 
The gospel message should contain no apology for its 
proclamation. It offers the world the greatest thing 



62 EVANGELISM 

there is, and is not ashamed of it. Paul puts it finely 
in Romans i. i6. 

But this salvation, it must be remembered, is to 
regulate all life in all its bearings and relations. Evan- 
gelism strives for saved men, but also for a saved 
world, "wherein dwelleth righteousness." 

In the struggle for existence, whether in nature or in 
industry, the effort of the weak is to get into the 
place of the strong, and the effort of the strong is 
to keep them out. If the weak had their way, we would 
have the same conditions only with a new set of strong 
ones. When the weak ones got into the place of the 
strong ones they would act just as the strong ones did 
before them. When the laborer who cries down the 
capitalists gets to be a capitalist he is just like the rest 
of them. Many of the "kings of finance" were once 
the slaves of a meager wage. So it has ever been. 
The cure of human ills is not in the material, but in 
the spiritual. It is in the temper and spirit of the 
new life. A man must be master of his goods or else 
he is their slave. 

Life in union with God is the end of religion. 

The man with little waits for the man with much 
to come down, but he himself wants to go up. But 
where shall the man who is to come down stop ? And 
where is the man who is going up to stop? The stop- 
ping place is as difficult for the one as it is for the 
other. If the lower man begins to rise, he 
will not stop as long as he can rise higher. 
At last he comes to the place of the man he con- 
demns for being up, but he does not want to be con- 
demned, but commended for his successful rise. The 



THE MESSAGE (GENERAL) 63 

man who has come down now condemns him, and so 
the circle goes on. As long as the basis of the con- 
tention is the material the quarrel will go on, for as 
long as men differ in capacity there will be differences 
in social and financial levels, and the grade that is 
longed for will not come by a leveling down process, 
but by a grading-up process, and that too in charac- 
ter rather than in property. Men will come together 
on the level of life's higher values, namely, the spirit- 
ual. The true democracy is in the spiritual. 
There can be differences of possession without 
pride, envy, or hatred. When men come to oneness 
of spirit there will be real brotherhood. There can be 
no brotherhood by forces which produce hatred and 
jealousies. Evangelism is to make men brothers by 
bringing them to oneness of spirit in Jesus Christ. In 
that brotherhood there will be justice, righteousness, 
goodness, and love. 

Service the Cure for Selfishness 

The best cure for selfishness is service. When men 
get interested in making a better world by getting the 
will of God done, they will have neither the time nor 
disposition to hate, envy, and oppress one another. But 
before that time comes there must be much justice 
practiced on both sides of the industrial restlessness of 
to-day. Religion will not only give a motive but a 
new power to do this. One of the great dangers of 
to-day is the mania for immediacy. Things must be 
done right off. The work of years must be done while 
one waits. But some things cannot be done right off. 
An artist can paint a tree in a few days, but it takes 



64 EVANGELISM 

God several years to make a tree. Traditions and 
prejudices and age-long differences of temper and 
viewpoint cannot be changed at once; adjustments can- 
not be made overnight. There must be patient founda- 
tion work done, but the outcome of the slower and 
more thorough process will be far more permanent 
and satisfactory. It is by evolution rather than by 
revolution that the best work will be done, but there 
often have to be revolutions, to get evolutionary forces 
started, just as cataclysms in nature have hastened 
the work of evolution in many directions. A sudden 
upheaval or subsidence may change climate and other 
conditions, such as moisture, dryness, soil, etc., and 
so hasten the evolutionary process in certain directions 
by thousands of years. 

So in human society revival or industrial revolu- 
tion may greatly hasten progress along all good lines. 
The South is to-day, perhaps, industrially a hundred 
years ahead of where it would have been but for the 
Civil War. The South fell, but it fell upward, and in 
spite of the devastation of four years of awful war the 
South put forth an energy in reconstruction which was 
only equaled by its courage in fighting. Sometimes 
the whole system of living as far as it is wrong, whether 
of the individual or social order, has to be broken up 
by what looks like a method of violence and destruc- 
tion, so that a new order founded upon better princi- 
ples may be constructed. The industrial waste and 
perversion of the liquor traffic had to be destroyed by 
law in order that the men, money, and plants em- 
ployed in that destructive traffic might be employed in 
a constructive and beneficent business. This twofold 



THE MESSAGE (GENERAL) 65 

force must go on in evangelism, destroying or trans- 
forming all those things which are subversive of the 
kingdom of God, that the Kingdom, with all its benef- 
icent principles for individual and social weal, may go 
on unto perfection. Evangelism must never be put 
under the suspicion that it is actuated by selfish inter- 
ests. If a church is suspected of being more interested 
in its own statistics than it is in human welfare, its 
usefulness is at an end. If a denomination is sus- 
pected of being more anxious to spread its own doc- 
trines than it is to introduce men and women to Jesus 
Christ, its influence as a world power is gone. The 
great business of evangelism is to make real Chris- 
tians. When that is thoroughly and unselfishly done, 
all other interests will be best served. 

But that will not be done by antagonizing either 
capital or labor, but by exalting Christ, and it is his 
rule in the lives of men that will condemn wrong and 
defend right among all classes of men, and sanctify 
all the relations of men. That is the best rule to cor- 
rect the false standard of the "me first" men in all 
classes. The Christian spirit is the sacrificial spirit, 
which puts itself last, and the kingdom of God with 
God's Fatherhood and man's brotherhood first. That 
sacrificial principle must lie at the very heart of the 
evangelistic message. 'Tf any man will come after me, 
let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and 
follow me." That is the hardest thing to do. It is 
hard for the upper man and it is hard for the under 
man. To let go of self for the common weal is life's 
hardest task. 

Jesus is the example of it. "The Son of man came 



66 EVANGELISM 

not to be ministered unto, but to minister." That is 
the lesson that all levels of human life must learn. 
It takes heroic living to do it, but that is the price that 
must be paid by those who follow Jesus, and that must 
be made clear in the message. It may be that is why 
so few travel the narrow way that leadeth unto life. 
Men broaden their usefulness as they narrow their 
self-interests. It may take a long time to rouse the 
social conscience, longer than it does to rouse the in- 
dividual conscience. But there is a social conscience, 
and there will be no permanent social betterment till 
that conscience is roused, sensitized, and put into ac- 
tion. There is social sin as well as individual sin, and 
that sin must be recognized and given up before any 
salvation that is more than a name will come to the 
world. The saved man must help to make a saved 
society, and saved society must be interested in the 
last lost man, and make it difficult for saved children to 
become lost men and women. 

That will put proper emphasis upon guarding the 
home, the school, industry, and all other institutions 
that make for the weal of child life, and therefore for 
all human life and interests. The evangelistic mes- 
sage is a broad, deep, practical message, and the pro- 
gram is commensurate with the message. The message 
is to every creature, and the program is a new world 
which is the kingdom of God upon the earth. 



CHAPTER V 
THE MESSAGE (SPECIFIC) 

I 

Love Message to Children 

The evangelistic message must be adapted to the 
group to whom it is given, because it is a call to God, 
but a message of salvation does not mean that the 
same form or emphasis will be equally appropriate to 
all groups. 

The message to children from ten to fifteen or six- 
teen ought to be a love message. They are still con- 
stantly sharing in the love of parents. God's Father- 
hood, with the love charms that are involved in it, is 
a most natural approach. So far these have earned no 
rights, they have not produced anything, they are fos- 
tered and protected by love. Love has fed, clothed, 
schooled them, and they can see love's obligation, how 
binding it is. The transition can easily be made from 
human love to God's Father love. 

The message always ought to be given along the Ihie 
that is the easiest and most natural approach to the 
group addressed. The talk to children or youth who 
have had natural and intelligent training, about the 
judgment and the hereafter — either the terrors of hell 
or the joys of heaven — is a misuse of words and a per- 
version of method. Those things are so remote to 
children and youth as to be unreal. They do not and 

67 



68 EVANGELISM 

ought not to think that they are going to die right 
away. Death to their own consciousness is oi¥ in old 
age. They know, of course, that other young people 
die, but they do not expect to die till they are old ; and 
with them, at any rate, the emphasis ought to be on 
life and opportunity and duty, not on death and re- 
wards or penalties. Children often are made morbid 
by thrusting on them considerations far in advance of 
their experience, and it is a grave mistake to teach 
them that God would punish them with an eternal 
judgment when human law would not even send them 
temporarily to jail. If they think that God is not as 
good as an ordinary judge, they may develop a rehgion 
of obedience founded on fear, but not on love. They 
will have a slave spirit and give a forced service. The 
great danger is that they will develop a hatred for re- 
ligion. Even ignorant and limited parents do not want 
that form of religion. How much less does God ! To 
that age, above all other, the message is to be the love 
of God. They should trust God W'ith the unsuspect- 
ing confidence of children, and love him with the spon- 
taneous love of a child's heart. 

Let ''temperance, righteousness, and judgment to 
come'' be reserved for the hardened and deliberate 
transgressors, where it wnll be understood and de- 
served, but to spoil and terrorize child life with the 
matters of judgment is an inexcusable perversion of 
the evangelistic spirit and method. No one who is in 
his right mind w^ould teach that a human father w^as 
one who would secure filial obedience by the threat of 
disinheritance, banishment, or death, to his children. 
Yet some think that it is entirely proper to so repre- 



THE MESSAGE (SPECIFIC) 69 

sent the Fatherhood of God and the divine rules of 
family life. God is to be made inexpressively lovely, 
and tender and gentle and good ; better than all the lov- 
ing mothers and good fathers in the world, to those 
under sixteen, who are still in the home, Sunday 
school, and church. Even to the boys and girls of 
the slums it is far better to tell them of a love they 
never knew in their homes than to make God an infinite 
Policeman whom they fear and despise. 

The evangelistic message must be carefully worded 
and guarded when it is addressed to children. Deci- 
sion Day talks in the Junior and Intermediate Depart- 
ments of the Sunday school are more exposed to the 
peril of being misunderstood and to miscarry than any 
other form of evangelistic address, and the conse- 
quences are the most serious. To bias young minds 
against the goodness and fairness of God when the 
emotions and imagination are far in excess of the rea- 
son and judgment, is one of the most serious blunders 
that teachers, preachers, parents, or evangelists ever 
make in the matters of religion. Utter indii¥erence to 
religion, or religious hatred, or even atheism, may and 
often does result from such teaching. 

To those of tender years, the message must be one 
of the love and the goodness of God. Any other is 
given at a risk so great that one shudders to think 
of the consequences that may follow. Much of the 
mischief of the boys and girls of that age in Sunday 
school is but the hissing through the safety valve of 
action of the steam of unused energy, and is not inten- 
tional nor premeditated mischief. It is easy to mis- 
judge these young people, and to accuse them of de- 



70 EVANGELISM 

liberate and planned maliciousness when they know all 
the time that it is not true. They lose confidence in 
the accuser's judgment, fairness, and goodness, 
whether he be teacher, superintendent, or pastor. 
These young people are more sensitive to injustice at 
this age than at any other time because now they feel 
that they have no redress. Bad as it is for teacher, 
superintendent, or pastor to fall in their eyes, and drop 
out of the love and confidence of these boys and girls, 
it is far worse to so represent God that he falls. And 
when the speaker feels peeved because of inattention, 
which may be due to uncomfortable seats, poor light, 
defective hearing, bad air, or weariness, or the general 
confusion of a poorly discipHned Sunday school, it is 
easy then to remind them of the judgments of God on 
offenses of which they are unconscious, so the talk 
seems nonsense. The evangelist or pastor who wins 
these boys and girls is wise, and they are more easily 
won or wounded then than at any other time. Their 
own love is exuberant and abounding, though often 
shy, and they will respond more heartily and naturally 
to a love message that is strong and dignified, and not 
sentimental and condescending, than they will to any 
other kind of message. There are many things they do 
not know. They have not much of an idea of service 
and sacrifice; their lives are too narrow and well pro- 
tected for that. They are in school, and that occu- 
pies a large part of their time and strength. There is 
as yet but a small opportunity for service, and still less 
for sacrifice, open to them. Study and recreation are 
about all that is expected of them. But they do know 
love. They are living on it. It is love that provides the 



THE MESSAGE (SPECIFIC) 71 

unearned supply of their needs. They know love, 
therefore the appeal is to be in the realm of their ex- 
perience. If it is not, the message will mean nothing 
to them; if it is, it will mean all to them. Their mes- 
sage is a love message. That is logical and natural. 
It is at this point that many pastors and evangelists 
fail. They preach a message almost entirely outside 
of the experience of this age, and if they try to make 
their mature messages simple, they make them silly, 
and that these boys and girls resent. Parents too 
make a serious mistake by holding their children back 
because ''they do not understand'' ; but they do under- 
stand love; they are full of it. They see its manifesta- 
tions everywhere. The preacher doesn't have to ex- 
plain or simplify love. They know it as well as he 
does. He needs only to appeal to it. These boys and 
girls can understand God's love as well as parents' 
love. All the parents need to do is to ask them to 
respond to God's love as they do to their love. The 
imagination is very vivid at this age, and the affections 
warm, and Jesus can be made both real and dear. The 
love appeal of Jesus is powerful. 



The Appeal to the Heroic 

Let us next consider the message to be delivered to 
those ranging in age from sixteen to thirty. Here 
the message must be in the main an appeal to the 
heroic. The age limit on the underside starts about 
when the hero-worship age in concrete form ends and 
passes into the heroic ideal. It is the friendship-form- 
ing, love-making age. Here is where the ideal of the 



72^ EVANGELISM 

heroic and sacrificial takes its rise. Both friendship 
and love involve the sacrifice principle. The boy wants 
to be a soldier, for example. This is the ideal-making 
age, sixteen to twenty. 

The next decade is the career-planning age, in which 
the ideal is to be realized. Love issues in marriage, 
and choices of lifework are made. The spirit is adyen- 
turous and active. These young people can leave home 
or country now easier than they can at any later time. 
It is an age of knighthood, beginning in sentiment, but 
continuing in judgment. The young people are seri- 
ously getting ready to live, planning lifework, found- 
ing homes, starting business, doing the hard founda- 
tion work fearlessly, facing drudgery and overcoming 
obstacles. Life is worth while. Their holy audacity 
will brook no opposition. They can work, suffer, sacri- 
fice because they are fired by a noble ambition. Their 
life is heroic. The appeal is to be to the heroic. 

Now it is a waste of words to talk to them about 
death and judgment. These things are not in their 
program. Deathbed scenes are poor illustrations for 
such an age. This is particularly true of college groups 
and soldiers. They have characterized the pathetic 
rather caustically : they call it ''sob stuff.'' That kills 
it for them. They want to make their lives to count 
for the most. They may have no clear idea of what 
the real worth of life is. They want success, and only 
the exception among them wants to be either a slacker, 
one who will not begin, or a quitter, who will not fin- 
ish. That is their ideal more or less clearly defined. 
Now, their practice may be far below their ideal — in- 
deed, inconsistent with it. The fault is not so much 



THE MESSAGE (SPECIFIC) 73 

with the ideal as with the motive. These young peo- 
ple are not afraid of hard work, self-denial, hardship, 
danger, etc., if these things are essential to success; if 
they are stepping-stones which when mastered lead to 
their goal. The religious appeal is to match their ideal, 
to define it in terms of life's highest values, and then 
furnish a motive powerful enough to drive them to it. 
Friendship, love, patriotism, ambition, are their natural 
incentives. The religious motive involves all these. 
Friendship with Christ, love for Christ, patriotism for 
the Kingdom, ambition to make the most of life on its 
highest level — these natural incentives are to be capi- 
talized for the Kingdom, and can be, within that age 
limit, better than with any other class of people. Youth 
can be successfully asked to dare and do hard things. 
A safe gospel does not appeal to the intrepid spirit of 
youth. Loyalty to a principle, and especially loyalty 
to a person, at that time, is very strong. ''Lead on, 
O King Eternal," 'The Son of God Goes Forth to 
War,'' "Fight the Good Fight" appeal more powerfully 
to that group than "Come, Ye Sinners," "J^st as I 
am," or "Alas, and Did My Saviour Bleed," etc. They 
want a challenge to heroic service, to daring venture. 
This class is more responsive to reHgious appeal than 
any other class just because of the intellectual and emo- 
tional make-up of their age. 

3 
Failure of Weak Appeals 

The reason why more are not reached is that the 
appeal is too weak. They are asked to do the minimum 
that will make their lives most worth while. This is 



74 EVANGELISM 

the volunteer age. Volunteering is now done intelli- 
gently and with purpose. Volunteering may be done 
earlier, by the power of suggestion, and later because 
of policy or pressure; but at this age it is natural, spon- 
taneous, courageous. It is well to conserve these 
strong, native impulses for Christ's service. The ap- 
peal of Christ's manifold character, especially his poise, 
courage, strength, unselfishness, is powerful, if put to 
that age. The strong, manly, vigorous, courageous 
Christ appeals to this age rather than the patient, toil- 
ing, suffering Christ. Christ the conqueror, rather 
than Christ the sufiferer, is to be preached. They are 
willing to suffer, but to suffer in order that they may 
conquer. In a word, it is the heroic age. The appeal 
that is most effective is the challenge. For this group 
the challenge has more power than persuasion has. 
Persuasion sounds too much like coaxing. They would 
rather be commanded than coaxed. Coaxing is too 
suggestive of the appeal of weakness to obstinacy. 
It has not the ring of authority which youth likes. 
Many fail in college evangelism just because they make 
religion too easy. They make it mean little more than 
a good resolution, or the turning over of a new leaf. 
That is not worth while. The work sometimes is hin- 
dered also because often the least athletic and schol- 
arly students on the campus are the most active in 
religion. The vigorous student thinks that religion 
only fits the negative, the mediocre, and the weak. 
Now, if the evangelistic message justifies that opinion, 
the real leader of the college body will have nothing of 
it. The evangelistic message must be put with such 
strength and directness, religion must be shown to 



THE MESSAGE (SPECIFIC) 75 

be so brave, manly, sacrificial, enduring, that the 
strongest man in college will feel like a coward if he 
does not accept the challenge. In giving the challenge 
like that some may be discouraged and fear that it is 
impossible for them. It is inevitable that some will 
not accept it, but it is better to discourage the weak 
with a great gospel than to disgust the strong with a 
mean gospel. The fear can be allayed even for the 
weak by a strong setting forth of the Almighty Christ 
who is to be their Yokefellow. After all, it is not what 
they can do, but what they and Christ together can do 
— and that is all that ought to be done. That must be 
made clear to all groups. Religion is not a thing but 
a relation. The Christian is not one who believes cer- 
tain things and tries to do certain things, but qne who 
is in personal fellowship with Christ. That personal 
element must be stressed in all appeals and challenges. 
That will solve more problems and answer more ob- 
jections and prevent more evasions of all classes than 
anything else. The best answer to the question, ''How 
can I keep in the fellowship of Christ?" is, ''Christ will 
keep you in his fellowship unless you break away of 
your own accord.'* It is not a question of their keep- 
ing Christ, but of Christ keeping them unless they 
refuse. 

The heroic appeal, then, is to be made to the heroic 
age, and all the powerful incentives of that age are to 
be capitalized and used for the Kingdom's purpose. 
That would be the plain and sane psychology and 
common-sense evangelism for that age. The message 
must not only be true, it must be pertinent. When 
the preacher knows that his message is both true and 



7(y EVANGELISM 

pertinent he can reasonably expect results which will 
give him that kind of assurance in preaching that 
goes a long way toward securing results. 

4 
The Message to Middle Life 

Now, what shall be the form or content of the mes- 
sage to middle life, say from thirty to fifty-five? Of 
course these divisions are rather arbitrary, and the 
limits are put rather far apart. This group may be 
called the middle-life group. This group includes the 
''fatal forty." This is perhaps the age of greatest re- 
ligious indifiference. A better term, perhaps, would 
be ''religious inattention.'' There is a reason for it. 
This is the age of absorption and preoccupation. Fam- 
ily cares and business preoccupation leave little room 
for attention to anything else. The pace at this period 
of life is so killing that leisure is devoted to recreation 
of rather an extreme sort. The claim is that the busi- 
ness and home tension is so great that it must be offset 
by a similar sort of recreation. Sunday golf and pic- 
nics, yachting, automobile rides all day with the fam- 
ily, visiting, etc. — these leave little time for rehgion 
or church. The moral sense is not dead, it is asleep. 
The mind is preoccupied with other things. If a man 
is successful at all in business, it is at this time. Com- 
petition is so keen that the business must have his un- 
divided attention. "Business first'' is his motto. Then 
he must look after his health to keep that business 
going. 

The mother is rearing the children, getting them off 
to school, so "Family first" is her motto. Perhaps 



THE MESSAGE (SPECIFIC) yy 

when the weather is not good for motoring they send 
the children to Sunday school. These people are not 
always hostile to religion, but they have no time for it. 
It is not an essential matter now. They expect some 
day when life is less strenuous to give more time, or 
some time, to religion, but they cannot think of it now. 

The thing that they do not see is that they are les- 
sening their capacity for religion, and when the long- 
looked-for leisure comes they have no taste or desire 
for religious things. That is the tragedy: they have 
been false to themselves. They allowed their success 
to make failures out of themselves. That happens so 
frequently that it needs no further comment. The 
preacher must understand that group. 

The two words that bulk big with that group are 
"responsibility" and "duty." They are faced with 
them every day. No man can be in business without 
feeling the force of these. He is responsible to some- 
body, somebody is responsible to him. Obligation in 
contracts and so on, hours of business, keeping ap- 
pointments, the performance of duties — these matters 
are all perfectly clear. Business success depends on 
them. This man, it is said, holds a responsible posi- 
tion. He talks of obligation, of the weight of responsi- 
bility, of the rigid rules of duty, "duty before pleas- 
ure," holding people to contracts, etc. 

That same thing is true of the home — duty to chil- 
dren, responsibility for health, education, proper care, 
etc. "Duty" and "responsibility" are the two great 
words during that period. 

Now, the thing that men and women forget is that 
their highest duty and most solemn responsibilities 



78 EVANGELISM 

are not met at all. "Duty" and "responsibility" are 
to be the two great words in the evangelistic message. 
These men must be made to see that their first duty 
is to God. God holds them responsible for the right 
use, which is the Kingdom's use, of their success in 
business. What are they going to do with their money ? 
They are only stewards. Do they recognize their 
obligation to God for health and life and opportunity? 
They discharge duties to men, but do they discharge 
that highest duty to all men, of helping to make a 
better world, and get the will of God done among men? 
Surely not if they have left God out of the program 
of their lives. They recognize claims; they have to 
deal' with them. The country makes claims on their 
incomes and profits. Press the just claims of God on 
their lives. They have recognized their responsibility 
to their sons, as to food, clothing, education, a start in 
life; but they have not discharged that responsibility 
to God in the religious care of these sons, or proper 
examples to them. 

That same will be true of mothers. They have been 
faithful in many ways, but in the main way they have 
failed. It may be they taught their little chil- 
dren to say their prayers, but they themselves never 
pray, nor set a good example to their children. 

These people need to be awakened to a sense of 
their duty to God, to their children, to the world. 
That self-centered, self-satisfied idea of life must be 
changed. The appeal here will be in making clear 
God's claim on them and God's expectation of them. 
The message can be very practical. This period of life 
is apt to be the most selfish. A gospel of duty, of un- 



THE MESSAGE (SPECIFIC) 79 

selfishness, of service can be put so straight to them 
that there will be no way of evading it. The sin of 
selfishness is their besetting sin, and they are utterly 
failing in Hfe, with all of their work and prosperity, if 
that sin is let to eat away their souls. 

Responsibility is to be the keynote of the evangelis- 
tic message to them. These people, if rightly ap- 
proached, will come to the church. If not, they must 
be quietly dealt with in their homes or offices, or both. 
But the same note that is to be in the sermon is to be 
in the conversation — duty and responsibility. They are 
tied up to other lives, for whose welfare they are re- 
sponsible. They owe a duty to God. That is to be 
the appeal, whether public or private. They must be 
dealt with frankly, persistently, but sympathetically. 
The preacher is only calling them to their best, for their 
own sake, for others' sake, for Christ's sake. 

5 
Message to the Under-Man 

Now, there is another class within these age limits 
and running a little beyond it — the class that will not 
go to the church. They may go to a rescue mission, 
but evangelism cannot leave them out of account if 
it is to gospel every creature, and present every man 
at last perfect in Jesus Christ. They are the so-called 
down-and-out class. Society and industry have thrown 
them out. Nobody will care for them when they are 
economically unprofitable and a social menace, if the 
church does not. The church must be their last friend, 
because Christ is. * 

What is to be the message to them ? To the younger 



8o EVANGELISM 

and more defiant, the judgment of God on the unre- 
pentant. The language of force and fear is the only- 
language they understand. The terrible outcome of 
sin can be preached to some of them. Many in rescue 
missions are reached that way. God can be presented 
as loving and holy and just, and because he is that, and 
more, he cannot be trifled with, nor can sin go on al- 
ways with impunity. The justice of God can be set 
forth to the willful, deliberate, defiant sinners who 
scofif at law and government, who are the enemies of 
society. The rugged side, the judgment side of the 
gospel, needs to be preached to them with such au- 
thority and force that they will give attention. 
Here is where the preacher can be lightning. 
This too for that hard smug class who fatten on ill- 
gotten gains and traffic in the bodies and souls of men 
and women for gain, those who manage the institutions 
of human ruin. The message is to be like that of 
Amos to the recreant Israel of his day, like Elijah 
to Ahab and his house. 

There is a place for the preaching of the vengeance 
of God on those who trample upon the weak and wreck 
all who come in their way. They must be made to 
see that a day of reckoning is coming, and they must 
repent of their sins, or be overtaken by the ravages of 
judgment. Those who have been guilty of the un- 
speakable frightfulness in the great world war need 
something more than a soft gospel preached to them. 
The justice and holiness of God — that is the message 
for them. It is not easy to preach to that class. It 
takes courage and candor, but they must have the gos- 
pel, but the gospel in terms that they can understand. 



THE MESSAGE (SPECIFIC) 8i 

There is no escaping the justice of God. That is judg- 
ment preaching. Not a small class of to-day needs 
exactly that type of preaching. 



Message of Hope to the Despairing 

But there is a wrecked class upon whom sin has done 
its worst; the despairing and despaired-of class. No 
use to talk about hell to them; they are in hell. No 
use to talk about the wreckage of sin ; they are already 
wrecked. The judgment can only mean a little more 
of what they have. They have lost all hope, will power, 
self-respect, friends, home, health — all gone. So in a 
sort of stolid, fatalistic way they have submitted to 
their long-drawn-out misery and look for nothing bet- 
ter. Yet they must have the gospel preached even to 
them. Evangelism is for them also. What will the 
message be ? It is a difficult class to preach to or deal 
with, for one can do so little with despair. What shall 
the message be to them ? The message of hope. God 
can help them to come back. Christ will recreate them 
into new men and women. There is hope for them, 
a better life for them; God will give them another 
chance. They must place complete dependence on him, 
now that they have no longer any self on which to 
depend. A complete giving of themselves over to the 
forgiving, helping Christ, and they can be saved. This 
is desperate preaching, for the people are desperate. 
Hope, hope, hope, and more hope, must be poured into 
them until at last the little linger of hope that is left in 
their burned-out lives kindles, and the long-dead initia- 
tive comes to life again, and they dare take hold of the 



82 EVANGELISM 

forgiving grace of God. No use of preaching hope to 
the defiant, hardened sinner, else he will go on sinning ; 
but these are about through sinning willfuly ; their wills 
are gone ; they sin automatically. Hope will bring them 
back. Hope must be preached even before love. All 
whom they have known and loved, or were loved by 
long since gave them up. Love failed, but hope tells 
them, ''When my father and mother forsake me, then 
the Lord will take me up." Will he? Hope says, 
''Yes, trust him.'' This class will take no step toward 
reformation until hope is inspired that it can be done. 
They must be told that to Christ there are no impossi- 
ble cases if they will give him a chance. They do not 
have to go to him. He has come to them. They are to 
let him save them. The glory of the gospel is that it 
has hope for that class. No other gospel has hope for 
,the hopeless; but Christ's evangel knows of no hope- 

/ less class except the willfully incorrigible who refuse 

\to be saved. 

The aged, the wrecked, the hopeless are all in- 
cluded in Christ's plan of redemption and for them sal- 
vation is made available if they will only accept it as 
it is freely offered in Jesus Christ. The Bible has abund- 
ant messages for all classes. The gospel of love, of hero- 
ism, of duty, of idealism, of hope, of comfort runs all 
through the Bible, and it is the duty of the preacher in 
his evangelistic work to find and offer the messages 
that best meet the needs of the people to whom he min- 
isters. 



PART II 
PASTORAL EVANGELISM 



CHAPTER I 

THE NEED OF PASTORAL EVANGELISM 

A CHANGE of policy and method must accompany, 
or at least closely follow, a change of conditions or 
else failure will be inevitable. In many parts of the 
country conditions have so changed that the old method 
of revivals will no longer work. This will be dis- 
tressing only to those who think more of methods 
than of results; but those who want to get the work 
of God done in the world, and are concerned with 
methods only as far as they bring results, will welcome 
any necessary changes of method. The only danger is 
that they will be so slow in adopting some methods 
which will work, that the great evangelistic opportunity 
will be lost through the changed conditions. Note first, 
then, the changed conditions. 

Changed Conditions 

The first and rather disheartening change is that 
which has so seriously affected churchgoing. The habit 
of churchgoing is dying out in certain quarters. Few 
people, even church members, go twice a day. Where 
they go but once it is usually in the morning. The 
Sunday evening services are poorly attended, and those 
who go are generally the best people of the church. 
They go from long habit, or a sense of loyalty to the 
church, or love for the pastor. Those who are not 

85 



86 EVANGELISM 

professed Christians rarely go either morning or even- 
ing. In many places even the young people who have 
been to Sunday school and the young people's meeting 
do not attend the evening preaching service. The pas- 
tor faces at night a few tired saints and a large num- 
ber of yawning, empty pews. If church members do 
not attend church, of course it will hardly be expected 
that nonchurch people will. That means that there 
is little evangelistic opportunity in the morning and 
less in the evening. If the pastor holds revival meet- 
ings, they will be attended by a few anyway, and almost 
all of those who do attend will be the most deeply 
spiritual people in the church. There is no need of 
preaching an evangelistic sermon or making an appeal 
to these people, much less is there need of calling for 
a decision from them. The pastor feels both the em- 
barrassment and the incongruity of it all and often 
makes no evangelistic effort whatever. Now, if one, 
in these circumstances, is to follow the old-time 
methods of revival meetings, he can see failure be- 
fore he begins the meetings. The change, then, from 
the churchgoing habit to a nonchurchgoing habit puts 
out of date the old method of announcing that revival 
meetings will be held during a given month, usually 
January, and then expecting that the meetings will 
draw the unconverted to the church. In many places 
they will not draw even the church members to the 
church. A good many things have led to the change 
of this habit, such as Sunday sports, automobiling, and 
a steady lowering of the idea of the sanctity of the 
Sabbath through the laxer uses of it by our large for- 
eign populations, who have brought with them the holi- 



NEED OF PASTORAL EVANGELISM 87 

day idea, rather than the Holy Day idea, which had 
long obtained with us. Sunday has become largely a 
day of recreation rather than of worship. 

Whether we like it or not that condition has come 
about, and we must prepare to meet it rather than to 
use the old methods which do not recognize that such 
a condition has come. Industrial pressure has much 
to do with making Sunday a holiday. The overworked 
claim they must have it for family life and play or else 
for longer leisure for rest and sleep. Anyhow, the habit 
of nonchurchgoing has set in, and it must be reckoned 
with ; to ignore it is folly. That is, the condition must 
be met, not ignored. If the church has not now the 
kind of evangelistic methods which will meet that new 
condition, it must create them. In most places the old 
methods will not — or at least do not — meet the new 
conditions. But neither the world nor the church was 
ever more desperately in need of a thoroughgoing, sane, 
and constructive evangelism than now, and it is pre- 
cisely that kind of evangelism that is the hope of both 
the world and the church. 

The Old Emphasis 

The second change is that of emphasis. In the past, 
indeed, up to quite recent times, the emphasis was on 
the individual. The call was to repentance from sin. 
The regeneration of the individual man was the end of 
evangelism. Sin formed a large part of evangelistic 
preaching. To get to heaven and escape hell were 
mighty motives presented by pastors and evangelists 
for the rule of conduct. Judgment for the sinner was 
always standing in the background. The great aim of 



88 EVANGELISM 

life was to get ready to die. "Prepare to meet thy 
God'' was interpreted and forced to that end. Meet- 
ing mother in heaven, or seeing Jesus with the nail 
prints, the thorn marks, and the spear wound, were 
topics most stressed to get men to give up their sin and 
get ready for heaven. The torments of hell and the 
anger of God against the sinner — no mercy beyond the 
grave — were subjects that were presented with great 
skill and power, and with a conviction and seriousness 
that carried great weight, in order that men might be 
deterred from sinning. 

That kind of preaching to-day would make little 
impression in most places, and would not be tolerated 
in some places. The great realities of sin and its 
consequences, the fact that character fixes destiny, must 
still be stressed, but not in the bold and almost cruel 
form of yesterday. The jailer idea of God has given 
way to the idea of his Fatherhood. The love and 
Fatherhood of God make sin more unnatural and 
shameless than ever, but preaching has lost much of 
its lurid vehemence. The motive of love is more ap- 
pealed to to-day than the motive of fear, and the motive 
to serve than the motive to just save one's soul. The 
emphasis to-day for the most part is social rather than 
individual. The effort is not so much to get to heaven 
some day as it is to get heaven down here on the earth 
to-day. The regeneration of the individual is not so 
much stressed as the reformation of society. That 
emphasis itself would require a different method of 
presentation. 

The kind of revival that is attempted in some quar- 
ters has not much to do directly with the church. The 



NEED OF PASTORAL EVANGELISM 89 

attempt to reform society is made by better housing 
and working conditions, giving large attention to sani- 
tation and recreation, and very little is said about re- 
pentance and regeneration; indeed, some go as far as 
to say the less said about them the better. That is as 
foolish as it is useless. 

Repentance and regeneration are as vital and import- 
ant as ever, but they do not get the same consideration 
under the social emphasis that they did under the older 
individual emphasis. It is reformation rather than 
regeneration that is stressed. The appeal is not so 
personal and direct as it used to be. You can invite a 
man to the altar, to an inquiry room, to stand, etc., 
but you cannot ask a community to do these things. 
The appeal is more general and the response is more 
general, that is, less concrete and specific. So that the 
old method of evangelism will not work where the 
social emphasis has displaced the individual emphasis. 
But let us notice this in passing : there will be no perma- 
nent social reform that does not rest back on individual 
repentance and regeneration. If the individual will not 
come to the church, the church must reach him in some 
other way. 

The Social Method 

The social emphasis, however, necessitates a depar- 
ture from the old-time method. The social emphasis 
can neither be fought nor ignored. The two forms of 
method are not mutually exclusive; they are supple- 
mentary. The individual must be saved to save so- 
ciety, and society must be saved to keep the individual 
saved. The point here is that in many quarters the 



90 EVANGELISM 

social emphasis is the dominant one, and to meet it 
there must be a different approach and a different 
appeal if evangelism is to be effective. 

The third change is the change of intellectual at- 
titude. The whole intellectual outlook differs so widely 
from forty to fifty years ago and back that the methods 
back of the presentation and appeal must differ if men 
are reached to-day. In the popular as well as in much 
learned thinking a statement of the Bible does not 
settle the question once for all. The Bible is not ac- 
cepted to-day as final authority on all questions, as it 
used to be; therefore the biblical appeal has not the 
force it once had on the average unchurched man. The 
progress of physical science, the generally accepted 
doctrine of evolution, and the historical and literary 
criticism of the Bible known as the higher criticism, 
have contributed toward the unsettling of many peo- 
ple in the traditional beliefs about the Bible and its 
messages. Few things are taken on authority to-day 
by educated people. Indeed, many of the bright boys 
and girls in our best high schools, and especially young 
men and young women in college, will not accept many 
of the traditional beliefs. We may not like it, but we 
must face the changed intellectual attitude and deal 
with it as best we can. It will not do to treat it lightly 
or ignore it. To tell our young people to stop thinking 
and accept what they are told in the matter of religion 
is absurd. They simply will not do it. The thing for 
them to do is not to think less but to think more — to 
think their way through. The most dangerous place 
to stay is half way in one's thinking. There is faith 
on both sides of doubt. Almost every transition age 



NEED OF PASTORAL EVANGELISM 91 

is an age of doubt. We must think from the old faith, 
through doubt to the new faith, to the faith in the 
things that remain after all the tests have been made. 
Our age has not thought its way all through yet, so it 
is an age of doubt and uncertainty, and bright young 
people get into that intellectual haze at an early period. 
It will not do to scold them. They cannot help it. 
They found it in books in the schools, in the newspa- 
pers, and they hear much of uncertainty, or at least 
negative putting of truth even from the pulpit. Now 
all this has had its effect upon the old-fashioned 
method of evangelism, and very many young people are 
not reached in that way to-day. 

As a matter of fact, the progress of science, the doc- 
trine of evolution, and biblical criticism, when they are 
understood, have done a great deal more for religion 
and the Bible than they have done against them. Re- 
ligion is less emotional perhaps, but more ethical. It 
relates less to heaven and more to earth. It is not so 
much a solace to die by as a rule to live by. The Bible 
has been made more easily understood. If some diffi- 
culties have been raised, many have been settled. It 
is more preachable. It needs less defense and more 
proclamation. 

The views that now obtain of God's Fatherhood and 
Christ's brotherhood are far more wholesome and 
winning than the view they displaced. Indeed, the 
modern viewpoint carried with it far more gains than 
losses. We are better ofif than we used to be, but many 
people have not become adjusted to the new viewpoint, 
have not thought their way through ; have looked only 
at the uncertainties that have been raised and not at 



92 EVANGELISM 

the great certainties that have been established, so 
there are doubt, hesitancy, indifference, and in some 
cases hostiHty to both the Bible and religion. To deal 
successfully with these changed conditions we must 
change our methods to meet the needs of our day. To- 
day is not yesterday ; we cannot do as our fathers did. 
We ought to do better than they did, for we have more 
light. But the saddle horse is not the automobile, nor 
the stagecoach the express train, nor is the tallow dip 
the electric light. We are not the worse for the change 
in these material matters, nor need we be for the 
change in church methods. It is the life that is to 
be guarded, not the form. If we get men and women 
saved by the new method, or any method that works, 
we are as well off as the fathers were who successfully 
used the methods which do not now work with us. The 
method is not so important as long as the work gets 
done. 

The changed conditions, then, are the first cause 
which make the old methods no longer useful. The 
outlook is dark only if we do not constructively meet 
the changed conditions. The Bible will be more fully 
believed, will be more loyally served, mankind will be 
more unselfishly helped, the world more permanently 
bettered to-morrow than they were yesterday. 

Professional Evangelism 

The second cause is the rise of professional evangel- 
ism on a large scale. There have always been evangel- 
ists, and they will be always needed. Some men and 
women, both by temperament and training, are better 
fitted for that work than they are for the regular pas- 



NEED OF PASTORAL EVANGELISM 93 

torate. They have their place and importance, but 
when professional evangelism is made a substitute for 
pastoral evangelism the effect is not wholesome either 
on the church or on the pastor. The disadvantages to 
the church are fourfold. 

I. First, the church comes to the behef that it cannot 
have a revival without outside help; that is, that its 
own pastor cannot do the work. Here the church 
commits two errors. First, the thing which the church 
does not seem to see is, that if it did the same amount 
of work for its own pastor, and as cheerfully, as it 
does for the evangelist, it would be a good deal better 
off. The competent evangelist sees to it that the church 
does about all the work that is done. He only sug- 
gests and directs, but the church thinks that he is 
doing it all. It thinks that he is drawing the crowd. 
In part that is true, but the part which the church does 
not seem to see is that it is itself organized into per- 
sonal workers' bands, who in a great variety of ways 
are inviting the outside people to the church, calling for 
them and taking them to the meetings. The church 
enthusiastically does this work because the evangelist 
asks that it be done. If the same work was done 
for the pastor, a sort of sustained revival would be 
going twelve months of the year instead of one. The 
results of the revival are due far more to what the 
church does than to what the evangelist does. Every 
pastor cannot have a revival whenever he wants it, 
but every church can. When any church — pastor and 
people — will do the work and pay the price, a revival 
can be had without outside help, but it is difficult to 
make either pastor or people realize it. 



94 EVANGELISM 

2. The second error is that the church does not see 
that if it put at the pastor's disposal for evangeHstic 
work in the parish as much money as it gives to the 
evangeHst, far more and better work would be done. 
The church gladly pays the bills for the lighting, heat- 
ing, advertising, printing, music, etc., amounting in six 
weeks to five hundred dollars, and then with equal or 
greater cheerfulness gives the evangelist his enter- 
tainment, and a freewill oflfering of, say, a thousand 
dollars. The campaign cost at least fifteen hundred 
dollars. The same church may pay the pastor no more 
than fifteen hundred dollars a year. He could invest 
the fifteen hundred dollars paid one for six weeks' 
work to far greater advantage by spreading a more 
efficient service over twelve months of the year. But 
it is almost impossible to make the church see it, much 
less act upon it. In a word, if the church gave us much 
service and money to its own pastor as it gives to a 
professional evangelist — who often pushes the pastor 
into the background — it would be better off. 

This is no criticism of the professional evangelist, 
his motives or his work, nor does it mean that he is 
not of very great importance in the work of the 
church. It does mean, however, that if the church 
imagines that its own pastor is not, or cannot be, an 
evangelist, in most cases it makes a great mistake. 

The second disadvantage to the church is, that it 
comes to believes there is only one kind of a revival 
that will be effective, and that is the spectacular. (The 
word ''spectacular" here is not used in any invidious 
sense.) That is the sort which the professional evan- 
gelist usually conducts — the large choir, press commit- 



NEED OF PASTORAL EVANGELISM 95 

tee; personal workers' groups, who circularize the 
neighborhoods; shop meetings, midweek, Sundays, 
men's meetings, parlor meetings, and other conspicuous 
activities. The church seems to think that it can have 
a real revival in no other way. Anything less than 
that would not appeal to the church, and if the pastor 
cannot conduct a revival that way, he had better get 
some one who can; and as the average pastor cannot, 
little or nothing is done. Of course all the professional 
evangelists do not work that way, but the methods 
are pretty well standardized. The average pastor can- 
not conduct a revival the same way that the average 
professional evangelist does, and for the best perma- 
nent interest of the church perhaps ought not. 

3. The third disadvantage is that the church comes 
to believe that an individual church cannot have a re- 
vival, because most of the professional evangelists 
want union services. That is all right from the evan- 
gelists' viewpoint. There are limits to their time and 
strength, so they want to get the largest possible hear- 
ing for their message. They want to reach the great- 
est possible number of people. The impression gets 
abroad, then, that the evangelist will not go to an 
individual church. Now, it so happens that in many 
places union meetings are not practicable, and in some 
places hardly possible. If, therefore, the pastor can- 
not have a revival without outside help, and if the 
outside help will not come to an individual church, 
and if a union meeting cannot be held, of course there 
can be no revival. So year after year no revival is 
attempted. 

That at once brings us to the fourth disadvantage, 



96 EVANGELISM 

namely, initiative is destroyed. The church fails of 
its fundamental mission — to get folks saved. It there- 
fore loses power and does little more in the community 
than mark time, and in some cases slowly dies out. 
That is the fate of the church which has no faith in its 
own evangelistic possibilities under the leadership of 
its own pastor. 

Effect on the Pastor 

The next point to be considered is the effect upon 
the pastor. Not only has professional evangelism af- 
fected the church, through no fault of its own, for it 
tried to help the church and the church made it a 
substitute for its own work rather than a supple- 
ment to it, but it has also affected the pastor. Many 
pastors believe that they cannot conduct a revival 
without outside help. So when they add their lack 
of faith in themselves to the church's lack of faith in 
them for this particular work, of course nothing is 
done. Many a pastor justifies his lack of evangelistic 
efforts on the ground that he is unfitted tempera- 
mentally to be an evangelist. He says he is not emo- 
tional nor spectacular, does not believe in high-pressure 
methods, and therefore he cannot be an evangelistic 
preacher. He claims to be a cultural preacher, or a prac- 
tical preacher. He will emphasize religious education 
and practical ethics. Let the evangelist do the soul- 
saving and he will build up the converts into strong, 
consistent Christian characters. So he says there is 
a division of labor. He cannot do what the evangelist 
does, nor can the evangelist do what he does. Each, 
therefore, must remain in his respective field and do 



NEED OF PASTORAL EVANGELISM 97 

the thing that he can do best. That sounds reason- 
able, but the fallacy in it is that educational and ethical, 
or what is called a practical cultural preaching, is not 
good evangelistic preaching. As a matter of fact, that 
is not good, or the best, evangelistic preaching which 
is not intellectually strong, doctrinally constructive, 
and which does not issue in ethical conduct. 

A type of preaching that is good enough to get folks 
out of sin, to break bad habits, to give new incen- 
tives, to establish right relations between man and God 
and man and man is precisely the kind of preaching 
to keep saved people saved and to operate to the best 
advantage in' advancing the kingdom of God. One 
reason that there are so many lapses from highly emo- 
tional revivals is that the preaching was neither intel- 
lectual nor ethical enough to show the convert both 
the privileges and the responsibilities of the Christian 
life. The strongest and most practical kind of preach- 
ing is best adapted to evangelism, yet that is the 
kind of preaching our cultural preacher claims for 
himself while still declaring that he cannot be an 
evangelist ! 

This brings us, then, to the second effect upon the 
pastor. Like the church, he comes to believe there is 
only one kind of a revival, and that is the high-pressure 
kind which the professional evangelist conducts, and 
for that kind of evangelism the cultured pastor feels 
he has no aptitude, so he attempts no evangelistic 
work whatever. The quieter form of direct personal 
work for which he may be admirably fitted he does not 
do at all, yet in many ways it is not only more certain 
of immediate results but far more certain <>f inMiiia- 



98 EVANGELISM 

nent results than by the high-pressure form; but that 
quiet way is too often not regarded as evangeHsm. 

Reconstruction 

But the pastor often is confronted with practical 
difficulties after a revival has been conducted in his 
church by a certain type of evangelist. This one deals 
almost altogether with the symbolism of the Bible, but 
interprets it in the most literal fashion ; or he has some 
fad, such as holiness, or the second coming of Christ; 
or he takes a hostile, even violent, attitude toward the 
amusement question. He often attacks wealth or 
scholarship, or has some other hobby which he keeps 
constantly before the people for several weeks, with 
the result that sometimes a church is hopelessly split 
after the meetings are over, meetings which were to 
unite all people, and the pastor has a work of recon- 
struction on his hands which is both delicate and diffi- 
cult to carry on. He must rescue the Bible from fan- 
tastic interpretation; he must rescue Christian experi- 
ence from extravagance; he must rescue the church 
from high-pressure emotional methods; he must win 
back certain people who left the church because of 
either superficial methods or extreme doctrine ; he must 
pacify some who have become hostile over money 
matters. Now while he is doing this many of the 
devotees of the evangelist will charge him with trying 
to undo the evangelist's work, because he is jealous of 
him, or knows he could not do as well himself and is 
resolved to destroy the work that has been done. As 
a consequence many of them get offended and leave 
the church. 



NEED OF PASTORAL EVANGELISM 99 

No pastor likes to look forward to an experience 
like that. Of course such a result does not always, 
nor even often follow, but it does follow with suffi- 
cient frequency to lead the pastor to draw the hasty, un- 
fortunate conclusions that evangelists are all alike, their 
methods all alike, that he will have nothing of either, 
and therefore he will put forth no evangelistic effort at 
all. Thus, pastoral evangelism has been allowed to 
fall into disuse. Instead of stimulating every pastor 
to be his own evangelist, or to be evangelistic and to 
call in outside help only when he is tired out, he omits 
evangelism altogether. That is too common to be com- 
fortable. Too many pastors lack evangelistic passion, 
and seem to think that if they help in a big union meet- 
ing once in awhile, all their evangelistic responsibilities 
have been met. Far from it. The big union meetings 
come very far from meeting the evangelistic oppor- 
tunity of the individual church or the community. If 
the community will not or cannot go into a union 
campaign, then the pastor justifies his evangelistic in- 
activity on the ground that he had no opportunity. 



CHAPTER II 
THE BIG UNION MEETINGS 

The big union meetings are often both misleading 
and disappointing in their results. It is true they 
have some very important advantages which must not 
be overlooked. 

First. They gather great numbers of people to- 
gether for religious purposes. That is a good thing 
for any community. 

Second. They get the different denominations in a 
given community into cooperative activity in which they 
cease their jealousies and competition among them- 
selves and unite in one common interest. After they 
have worked together for several weeks they know one 
another better, think more of one another, and agree 
to cooperate in community betterment after the meet- 
ings are over. That is a very good thing. The un- 
churched classes think more of them when they are 
cooperative than when they are competitive. Church 
rivalries are like church quarrels — they die hard, and 
do much mischief while they live. 

Third. They offer in the big tent or tabernacle a 
neutral ground to which people from the outside will 
come who would not go to any church. That is a 
very important thing in these days. Not many outside 
people go to evangelistic meetings unless they are held 
on neutral ground. So the tabernacle has an advan- 
tage in that respect. 

lOO 



THE BIG UNION MEETINGS loi 

But there are serious disadvantages which must not 
be overlooked. First, the tent meeting does not cul- 
tivate the habit of churchgoing. The atmosphere of 
the church is not in the tent. Many who make deci- 
sions for Christ on neutral ground, do not afterward 
go into the church, and after a longer or shorter varied 
career, they lapse into the old life again and never be- 
come active in the w^ork of the Kingdom. They do 
not identify the tent with the church. Few people con- 
tinue in the Christian life who are converted out of the 
church, unless they become members of the church and 
are active in it after they are converted. Second, the 
crowds are usually so great that it is almost impossible 
to deal with individuals, which is very important in 
evangelistic work. More than that, perhaps ninety 
per cent or more of those great crowds are Christian 
people. It is almost impossible to get a building which 
can be made practical, to hold all the church members 
that are in the union group. Crowds were never larger 
in the union services than now, and perhaps never was 
there so large a percentage of Christians among them. 
The big crowd does not mean that large numbers of 
unconverted people are being reached, at least in the 
meetings. Third, the method of securing decisions 
is apt to be unsatisfactory, because not definite enough. 
The method of having people come forward is very 
effective, provided something very definite and personal 
is done with and for those who go forward. They 
should be dealt with personally in an after meeting, 
where their difficulties coukl be removed, objections 
answered, and the way of the Christian life very fully 
explained. Then some action on their part, like pray- 



I02 EVANGELISM 

ing or giving a testimony, which might not be more 
than a declaration of intention, could be had. Even 
this would tend to fix their decision more firmly than 
the mere going forward did. In the big meeting too 
often that is not done and cannot be done. Then, 
too, going forward may mean little more than going 
forw^ard and shaking hands with the leader. That 
does not go deep enough to constitute a real serious 
Christian decision. Many who go forward in a big 
public meeting may not be heard of again. Perhaps 
they were strangers, and when they go back to their 
distant homes they may never record the decision they 
made, or seemed to make, in the tabernacle. Nobody 
will be the wiser. The follow-up work is very difficult. 

That same thing is true in the card-signing method. 
That method can be made very effective when properly 
done. There is a great deal of shallow criticism made 
against the card-signing and hand-raising methods. If 
these methods are used superficially or insincerely, of 
course they are open to criticism; but going forward 
to the altar may be as superficial or insincere, or 
thoughtless, or hasty, and then it is open to the same 
criticism. The great mistake that too often is made 
in all these methods is that the public act is taken 
as a conversion when it may be far from it. At best it 
is little more than an introduction to conversion. It 
may be a method of inquiry just to find out how to be- 
come converted; and if nothing is definitely done for 
those who thus make their expression, the whole matter 
will end there, and conversion may not ensue. 

Too much is expected of the method and too little 
of what the method stands for or invites. Many peo- 



THE BIG UNION MEETINGS 103 

pie decide, or want to become Christians, and come 
forward to find out how to become Christians. The 
important thing is not the coming forward, but the 
help given when they come. 

Simple Decision Cards 

Covenant cards or decision cards are often too 
rigidly drawn. Many who might be won are not yet 
prepared to make so definite a pledge, and so they will 
not sign. Others who do sign, sign to so much that 
nothing more is thought to be needed. The real object 
of the use of the card in both instances is defeated; 
the '^almost persuaded'' are not reached, and the ''fully 
persuaded'' are not helped. The decision card should 
be very simply drawn. Its real use is to introduce a 
personal worker to a seeker. On one side of the card 
a simple statement like the following could be made : 
"I earnestly desire to become a Christian and would 
welcome any help that may be given me." When that 
card is signed, any personal worker, even a timid one, 
has an introduction to that person, and an invitation 
to talk to him about the Christian life. On the other 
side of the card a little more definite statement could 
be made, such as, "I have accepted Christ as my per- 
sonal Saviour, and by his grace I intend to lead a 
Christian life." That too is an invitation for some 
one to explain more fully the privileges and responsi- 
bilities of the Christian life, and to induce the person 
who signed the card to become identified with the 
church at once. 

It is the personal work that is done by the pastor or 
some other competent persons that is of vital impor- 



104* EVANGELISM 

tance in evangelistic work. Where that is not done 
no method will be productive of large permanent re- 
sults. It is the lack of that direct personal work that 
is one of the great weaknesses of the big union meet- 
ings. The crowds are too great to be handled individ- 
ually. There are too many things going on at the 
meetings to keep them brief and make successful after 
meetings possible. Accordingly, the whole work is 
apt to be more superficial than if a like amount of 
effort were put forth in a group of individual churches, 
each doing its own work in its own way, a way which 
would be most effective on its own field. 

Fourth. The recorded results of such meetings are 
apt to be very misleading, and that gives an oppor- 
tunity to the man on the outside to discredit the whole 
thing and make him harder to reach than before. It 
also disappoints many of the cooperating pastors and 
churches, and makes them less willing to go into a 
union movement on a large scale again. 

Among those who go forward are many who are 
already Christians. They do not go forward to 
record their decision to become Christians, but 
for other reasons : to meet the evangelist, to report 
a hopeful case, to invite the evangelist to their homes, 
to encourage some timid persons to go forward too, 
to ask for some personal work to do, to report names of 
persons whom they have worked with, etc. But the 
whole number who went forward are reported as con- 
verts. That is the way the public understands it. "On 
a given night there was a great meeting. After 
a powerful appeal Evangelist A. gave the invitation, 
and five hundred and eighty-seven went forward for 



THE BIG UNION MEETINGS 105 

prayers." Now, as a matter of fact, three hundred and 
fifty of them might have been Christians already. It 
is only when the numbers who went forward are 
checked up by the numbers who join the uniting 
churches that the public sees the disparity. Then the 
integrity of the whole thing is brought under sus- 
picion. The inaccuracy of the reporter does not settle 
the matter. The after impression is not always whole- 
some or pleasant. 

The misleading element is more evident with the 
card-signing method than with the method of going 
forward. Many people will sign a card who would 
not go forward. Few people see them sign cards, but 
everybody sees them when they go forward. Card- 
signing will be very misleading unless carefully 
guarded, and it is not often carefully guarded. 

It is perfectly natural for one who is conducting a 
meeting to want to get the largest possible response 
to his appeal. If he is not careful, he will deceive 
himself as to the sincerity of his motive. Of course 
if he wants advertising, and if his next engagement 
will depend on the success of this one, the desire 
for advertising is both strong and subtle. But even 
when the whole matter is as far removed from per- 
sonal interest as it is natural to get it, the results are 
apt to be misleading. Sometimes the wording of the 
card is such, and sometimes the invitation to sign it is 
put in such form, that no real Christian could refrain 
from signing it. Anyone familiar with those methods 
well knows how generally that is done. It hardly could 
be otherwise. 

Of seven hundred cards signed four or five hundred 



io6 EVANGELISM 

may have been signed by Christians; that proportion 
is none too high in many cases. But the seven hun- 
dred are reported to the public as seven hundred de- 
cisions for Christ. The impression that the public gets 
is that there were seven hundred conversions. Now, 
when the meetings are over and the cards distributed 
among the churches according to the preference of the 
signers, then the disillusionment comes. Pastor B. has 
two hundred and fifty cards turned over to his church. 
He finds that two hundred and twenty-five have been 
signed by his best members. He receives into his 
church only twenty-five people. The public will be 
apt to say — and it would be natural to say it, judging 
from the published reports of the meetings — that Pas- 
tor B. had two hundred and fifty converts turned 
over to him and let two hundred and twenty-five slip 
through his hands, for he only received twenty-five 
into the church. Or it might be declared that the 
church was so cold, or so poorly organized, or so some- 
thing else, that two hundred and twenty-five refused to 
join it. If it is explained that the two hundred and 
twenty-five were already active members of the church, 
the man on the outside will ask, 'Why then did they 
sign decision cards and allow the public to think that 
they were new converts ?'' The whole thing will look 
insincere to him. He will say it is a pious way of stuff- 
ing the ballot box which would be strongly condemned 
outside of the church. It is hard for the outside man 
to believe in the genuineness or sincerity of the matter ; 
he looks upon it as a sort of pious fraud, and will have 
nothing to do with it. The statistics of big union meet- 
ings are bound to be misleading although there is no 



THE BIG UNION MEETINGS 107 

intention to be dishonest or insincere. If the church 
were shut up to this one form of evangeHsm, which 
some people think is sufficient, it would create the per- 
petual task of explaining away misunderstandings and 
of making the best of disappointments. In a word, 
it would be a very unsatisfactory form of evangelism 
both for the world and the church. 

Fifth. The big meetings are very expensive, and 
much of the good done in some campaigns is offset by 
misunderstanding and hard feelings which grow out 
of the financial difficulties that follow the meetings. 
The unfortunate projection of financial matters to the 
front in a spiritual work leads to harsh criticism and 
bitter feelings. The business end of some evangelistic 
campaigns is very poorly managed. The churches com- 
plain because they have to pay so much, and the pastors 
complain because the results are so meager, and the 
public complains because the work did not seem to be 
genuine. So there is dissatisfaction all around. The 
question will now be raised, If these things are true 
even in exceptional cases, ought big union meetings to 
be held at all ? Is not the sum total effect on the nega- 
tive side rather than on the positive side? 

Union Meetings Useful 

Big union meetings, by all means, ought to be held. 
The sum total effects need never be on the negative 
side. There is both need and room for just such meet- 
ings, and whenever the conditions warrant it they 
ought to be held. But if they are made a substitute for 
pastoral evangelism, or individual church evangelism, 
then the sum total effect will be apt to be on the nega- 



io8 EVANGELISM 

tive side. The big union meeting ought to be the cli- 
max of a great many unit meetings. When all of the 
individual churches under the leadership of their own 
pastors, or such brother pastors as might be called in 
to help with evangelistic fervor, are interested, a union 
meeting of these churches will be almost inevitable. 
Then a competent evangelist can be of inestimable 
value. There is a form of union meetings, however, 
that is very effective without the aid of a professional 
evangelist. The writer has had part in several such 
meetings. A given group of churches of one or sev- 
eral denominations will meet either on a common neu- 
tral ground, as in a Young Men's Christian Association 
auditorium, town hall, lyceum, or some other large 
public building, or they may rotate among the churches 
of the group. However, it is not wise to change the 
place of meeting, if it can be avoided. It breaks the 
continuity of effort, and it helps to break up the habit 
of attendance. It will take a night or two to get used 
to the place, and that introduces the element of inter- 
ruption. If the meetings are held in the churches of 
the group in rotation, too often the members of each 
church will feel responsible only for the meetings held 
in their own church, and that prevents that community 
interest that is cultivated by having the meetings in 
one place. 

In this type of union meetings the cooperating pas- 
tors are their own evangelists. They all attend all the 
meetings, sit together in the pulpit, or at least two of 
them are in the pulpit each night, and the rest are scat- 
tered judiciously among the congregation as personal 
workers. They preach by turns. Sometimes the man 



THE BIG UNION MEETINGS 109 

who did not preach will conduct the after meeting; he 
may even make the appeal, although that had better be 
done by the preacher, at least in its first form. But 
the person who watches the effect of the sermon on the 
congregation, and is not under the strain of the mes- 
sage himself, may often see more clearly what ought 
to be done than the one who preaches. There ought to 
be most complete understanding and the heartiest co- 
operation between the men who conduct the meeting. 
The meeting ought to be carefully planned before- 
hand, and as far as possible every emergency antici- 
pated, so that there would be no surprises, disappoint- 
ments, nor awkward pauses in the meeting when no- 
body seemed to know what to do. That confusion can 
be avoided when good team work is done. When 
one of the team seems to have exhausted his resources, 
the other may take hold with something new, or one 
of the preachers in the congregation may take advan- 
tage of a pause, to offer prayer, start a hymn, give a 
testimony, or exhortation, and thus save the meeting 
from an awkward situation. After an evening or two 
all the cooperating pastors would be known by face 
and voice, and that would prevent any of the people 
thinking that outsiders were trying to take the meet- 
ing out of the hands of the leaders. All the pastors 
would be a unit in their effort and understanding. To 
make that possible they ought to have a council to- 
gether for prayer, and plan before and after each 
meeting. That kind of a union service is usually very 
fruitful in permanent results. But if it were deemed 
wise, the union service might be under the leadership 
of some competent evangelist, wliose staff of coworkers 



no EVANGELISM 

would be the cooperating pastors. There would be 
few drawbacks or misunderstandings resulting from 
such union meetings. In this case the union meeting 
would not be a substitute for, but a supplement to, 
pastoral evangelism. 

Another question might be asked here : Is there any 
real place for the professional evangelist? Does the 
church need him any more? In the interest of pastoral 
evangelism, ought not professional evangelism and the 
professional evangelist to be discouraged? Certain 
types of evangelists ought to be discouraged — there is 
no doubt about that; but certain other types ought to 
be encouraged. The church needs not fewer evan- 
gelists but more and better evangelists. 

Conference Evangelists 

The type of men that are sometimes set apart as 
Conference evangelists ought to be discouraged. Men 
are sometimes given a nominal appointment, and they 
are designated as Conference evangelists, either be- 
cause of some disability that renders them unfit for 
pastoral service or because churches do not want them. 
These are exactly the men who ought not to be ap- 
pointed, even nominally, as Conference evangelists. 
The office of Conference evangelist ought to be made 
as important as any office in the Conference. It would 
not be a bad thing for every district to have its official 
evangelist selected from among the most successful 
evangelistic pastors in the Conference, and be paid by 
the district a salary equal to any other minister's salary 
on the district, and let him be at the service of the 
churches on the district under the direction of the dis- 



THE BIG UNION MEETINGS iii 

trict superintendents and pastors, or at least in hearty 
cooperation with them. Very much important work 
could be done by such an arrangement, but even then 
his work must not displace pastoral evangelism. This 
would in no way render the professional evangelist 
useless. Professional evangelists ought to be trained 
by the church just as its ministers are. Every theo- 
logical seminary ought to have a department of evan- 
gelism. The evangelist should take the full course of the 
seminary just as the pastor does, but he could specialize 
on evangelism. He would then have the pastors' view- 
point and cooperation would be much easier between 
pastor and evangelist. They would have a better com- 
mon ground than some do to-day. Then the evangelists 
would be able to preach and interpret the Bible as well 
as the pastors. That would make their work far more 
constructive than it is. 

Training Evangelists 

If there were provision for the training of evangel- 
ists by the church, many people, both men and women, 
who have peculiar gifts for that work would go into 
it, but now, as they do not feel qualified to be pastors, 
they either go into evangelism untrained, or else they 
do not go into distinctive Christian work at all. Some 
men who do not want to take time to train for the min- 
istry will go into evangelism, because they think it takes 
less training and less ability. 

An evangelist ought to be a specialist. He ought to 
know as much as the pastor does, plus. It is true that 
formerly some men who could not get through a medi- 
cal college would take up some particular study in 



112 EVANGELISM 

medicine and call themselves specialists. They could 
be more fitly called quacks. The best specialists add 
their specialty to a very thorough, all-round training. 
So ought an evangelist. No person ought to go into 
evangelism as a profession who is not as thoroughly 
trained as the pastor. I mention this because some one 
who reads this book may have considered almost any 
kind of seminary training to be sufficient for the work 
of an evangelist. Far from it. He ought to have the 
best training that can be had, for he is to be a specialist 
in the most fundamental thing in the ministry, namely, 
soul-winning. 

The church is confronted with two duties in the mat- 
ter of the professional evangelist : it should train evan- 
gelists and have many more of them, and it should not 
employ nor encourage untrained evangelists. By using 
only those who are best trained it might have fewer in 
service, but they would be better. Evangelists are 
to be pastors' helpers and not pastors' substitutes. 

Whatever or whoever takes the place of pastoral 
evangelism or makes it unnecessary works harm to the 
church. The pastor is first of all an evangelist. He 
may have a way of his own in getting people saved. 
He need not conform to any of the conventional stand- 
ards, nor employ any of the conventional methods, 
but he is to get folks saved; and when he does, by 
whatever method he employs, he is essentially an 
evangelist. He is saved to serve, and he serves to 
save. There may be as many methods as men, but 
the main thing is to get men and women rightly related 
to God and man ; that is, to make them Christians who 
will get the will of God done in the earth. 



CHAPTER III 
THE PERIODIC REVIVAL 

Pastoral evangelism may and perhaps ought to take 
two forms. The first form may be called the periodic, 
or occasional revival. The time-honored month for 
that revival was January, beginning with the week of 
prayer. That has not always been the best month, al- 
though the beginning of the new year was something 
to be said in its favor even if the reason were only a 
sentimental one. But very often the weather in Janu- 
ary for a large part of the country is disagreeable. A 
better month would be November, climaxing with 
Thanksgiving Day. Better still is March, which being 
in Lent, is less given over to pleasure and more given 
over to religion than any other month in the year. 
That month could climax on Easter Day, and Passion 
Week would give a splendid opportunity for very effec- 
tive appeals. It is a time when the cross and sacri- 
ficial service easily can be made prominent; they are 
always powerful appeals, but especially at that time 
of year. Spring Conferences often interfere, but under 
the area system the month preceding Easter ought to 
be left free for evangelistic work. 

But now it may be asked, If the old methods no 
longer work, is it worth while to have a month's re- 
vival? Can it be made successful? To both questions 
the answer is ''Yes.'' The periodic revival is logical, 

113 



114 EVANGELISM 

natural, and, if the necessary conditions are met, in- 
evitable and successful. In nature it corresponds to 
the harvest, but it is no more of a detached or 
unrelated thing than the harvest. The harvest 
is not an accident. It didn't just happen. The 
harvest is the climax of a process. Nature's 
method is a process with a climax. That is God's 
method, and it is as true in grace as it is in nature. No 
man can reap a harvest that was not sown. Neither 
can a church have a revival by setting apart a certain 
time, throwing the doors open, and saying, ''The re- 
vival is now on; come and be saved." When there was 
less to do and fewer places to go, that method did 
work, but it does not work to-day. The revival to- 
day is the climax in one month of diligent and faithful 
work and prayer through the other eleven months of 
the year. The periodic revival is a method employed 
by God in the religious history of his people. The 
Old Testament is a book of revivals. The prophets 
were national revivalists. They called the nation to 
repentance and to works of righteousness, as our fa- 
thers did their communities. The New Testament is 
a book of revivals. John the Baptist introduced a 
revival after a long period of religious dearth. Jesus 
was a revivalist, and his method was to set up the king- 
dom of God in the world. His messages were for the 
most part Kingdom messages. Jesus talked a great 
deal about the kingdom of God. Evangelism to him 
was getting the Kingdom established. He did not put 
much emphasis on a man getting off to heaven some 
day, but he did put emphasis on doing the will of God 
to-day. If the life is right to-day, to-morrow need 



THE PERIODIC REVIVAL 115 

cause no anxiety. That person is sure of heaven to- 
morrow who lives the heavenly life in the will of God 
to-day. The model prayer which he gave his disciples 
in Luke eleven is a Kingdom prayer. The Golden 
Rule is a Kingdom rule. The Sermon on the Mount 
is a Kingdom message. The general commission in 
Matthew twenty-eight is a Kingdom commission. 
Most of his parables are parables to illustrate the 
Kingdom. The parable of the mustard seed illustrated 
the law of expansion of the Kingdom, the leaven the 
pervasive power of the Kingdom. 

The apostles were evangelists, and none more so 
than the missionary evangelist Paul. The history of 
the Christian Church is a history of revivals and evan- 
gelists. In the nature of things, there is room and 
need for the occasional revival. It may not be wise 
to attempt to hold one every year in every place, par- 
ticularly in small communities. But in big cities, where 
there are always large numbers of unsaved people and 
a moving population, it would be wise to hold one 
every year but varying the method so as not to get into 
ruts or become commonplace. 

The occasional revival has some advantages that 
ought to be noted : 

1. It breaks up monotony by introducing the unu- 
sual. It has the element of novelty and has a freshness 
that appeals to many people to whom the regular serv- 
ices of worship do not appeal. 

2. The revival idea gets in the air and makes it 
easy even for timid people to talk about religion; and 
because it is unusual and many people are talking about 
it the subject is always introduced. It is very easy to 



ii6 EVANGELISM 

say, "Have you been to the meetings yet?'' and then 
extend an invitation to go next time. So conversation 
can easily and naturally lead to personal work. 

3. It opens up a variety of avenues of service for 
young people. They can be gotten to sing in the 
choir, to usher, to distribute cards of invitation in the 
neighborhood, to go out in teams of two each to call 
on other young people and invite them to church, or, 
better still, call for them and take them to church, sit 
with them and help them in any way they can to de- 
cide for Christ. Men can organize to do personal 
work among men, and they will do it for a short period, 
but would not think of keeping it up through the 
year. 

4. Various types of afternoon meetings can be held 
for women and children who cannot well attend the 
evening meetings. Mothers' meetings are of great 
value in evangelistic work. The prayers ofifered in 
mothers' meetings have been of incalulable value in 
revival periods. Shop meetings for men also can be 
held, often with the heartiest cooperation of both the 
employers and the employed if the meetings do not 
last too long and if they do not interfere with the 
regular work of the shop. Shop meetings are of great 
importance if properly conducted and are productive 
of gratifying results. It requires great skill to conduct 
such meetings, but let no one be discouraged on that 
account. Common sense is the most important factor 
in their successful conduct. They should rarely exceed 
fifteen minutes in length. The problem is to pack those 
fifteen minuets with interest and importance. The mes- 
sage must be brief, bright, and to the point. The 



THE PERIODIC REVIVAL 117 

singing also should be bright and cheery, and the hymns 
familiar, so the men could all join in the singing, es- 
pecially in the choruses. Debatable questions should 
not be discussed at the shop meetings, nor should any- 
thing be raised that would tend to alienate the em- 
ployer and the employed. Industrial matters had better 
be let alone ( i ) because there is not time in a five or 
six-minute speech to deal satisfactorily with such com- 
plicated problems; and (2) the aim of the shop meet- 
ings is to bring to the men a simple, direct, strong gos- 
pel message, to hold up Jesus Christ as every man's 
friend and Saviour. No appeal to class spirit should 
be mentioned, and nothing that would stir up strife or 
create a suspicion that the preacher was partisan. He 
is the friend of all men and is interested in the better- 
ment of all. Good shop meetings greatly elevate 
morale and tend to bring capital and labor into more 
wholesome and brotherly cooperation. If the meetings 
are judiciously conducted for two or three weeks, the 
preacher often is invited to continue them at least once 
a week indefinitely. When that is the case the preacher 
has achieved a great victory in that he has established 
a sympathtic bond between his church and the work- 
ing man. He will often have them in his congregation 
on Sunday night, so that out of his periodic revival 
he has created an opportunity for continous evan- 
gelism. 

5. The deck is all cleared for action ; in other words, 
all social and recreational activities are suspended for 
the period of the meetings, and the church concen- 
trates on one thing — the winning of men and women 
to God. The preaching is more direct and appealing; 



ii8 EVANGELISM 

in fact, the best preaching of the year should be done 
during the revival. A preacher ought always to try 
to better his best; but if ever he is to do his best, it is 
when he is preaching a soul-saving gospel, when he is 
presenting Jesus Christ as Saviour and urging the im- 
mediate acceptance of him by men. The whole church 
is alert and expectant; prayer groups get together 
every day for the preacher, the meetings, and the un- 
converted. Personal workers will be quietly winning 
souls between meetings, and that always is a guarantee 
of good meetings. 

Altogether it is very wholesome to both pastor and 
people to hold the periodic revival. In those meetings 
it is better, if possible, for the pastor to be his own 
evangelist. Occasionally it is wise to call in some effi- 
cient evangelist or another pastor to help him, but the 
pastor is to have charge of the meetings and direct 
all the activities. For no reason should be abdicate his 
leadership. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE CONDUCT OF THE PERIODIC REVIVAL 

How is it to be conducted? No one can give a 
definite answer to that question. The conditions differ 
so widely that what would be wise in one place might 
not be in another. Indeed, in the same place on differ- 
ent nights in the same week the conditions will differ 
so widely that the method of the night before will not 
work. The method should be always so elastic that 
any emergency could be met without any embarrass- 
ment. Only general principles can be suggested. 

I. As to the preaching. This subject was discussed 
in a previous chapter, but only in a general way. Here 
a few specific hints may be given that will be helpful. 
The revival sermon should be brief, say twenty-five or 
thirty minutes long. It should be strong, clear, direct, 
and deal with fundamental things. No careless, ill- 
prepared, or trivial preaching ought to be tolerated in 
evangelistic meetings. Sin, repentance, righteousness, 
duty, service, the love of God, the Saviourhood of 
Christ, the greatness of the Christian life are fitting 
subjects for the revival meetings. In this day it is 
not so much instruction, that most people need, the ^ 
important thing is to create in them a motive strong to ' 
make them act on what they already know. 

The sermons should be intellectually strong but also 

119 



I20 EVANGELISM 

emotionally warm. Many a man's reason is convinced 
that he ought to be a Christian who does not yield be- 
cause his emotions are not warm enough to move his 
will to decision. The main object of the revival is to 
lead to immediate action. The sermon is to create mo- 
tive power. Men must be made to see that they owe it 
to themselves, to their- famihes, to the world, and to 
God to live the best lives that it is possible for them to 
live, and that cannot be done as long as they love and 
practice sin. Christ came to deliver them from the 
power and defilement of sin, and he is to be presented 
for their immediate acceptance. Every reason, motive, 
affection, and argument is on the side of living a life 
wholly in the will of God. Character studies make 
good revival sermons — the stories of Abraham, Joseph, 
Moses, Gideon, David, Elijah, Jeremiah, Nehemiah, 
Amos, Paul, and others, on the positive side. But 
men whose careers are warnings are also important as 
studies, for they show the subtilty and danger of sin ; 
for example, Samson, Saul, Achan, Ahab, Judas, Pi- 
late, and others. The following are suggestive passages 
for texts: Isa. 5. 4; 6. 1-8; 53. 5. The Psalms are also 
helpful; for example, i, 15, 24, 51, 73, 103, 130. In 
the New Testament the following are useful: Matt. 

4. 17. Mark i. 17. Luke 9. 57-62; Chapters 15, 16, 
and 19. 10. John i. 11, 12; 3. 3-5; 16. i John i. 8-10; 

5. II, 12. Acts 26. 18. Rom. 5. i; Chapters 7, 8. i, 

2, 3i;39- 

It is often wise to take large sections, even whole 
chapters, for texts in revival meetings. The preacher 
should settle on the iiype of preaching that he is going 
to employ long before the meetings begin, so that he is 



CONDUCT OF PERIODIC REVIVAL 121 

so familiar with his subject that he will be able to do 
the many things that must be done during the meet- 
ings without seriously affecting his preaching. His 
sermons should follow a cumulative order, reaching a 
climax near the close of the meetings, when the strong 
appeals are to be made for immediate decision. They 
should be brief, so as to leave ample time in the after 
meeting to do a variety of the things that need to be 
done to bring about intelligent decisions. The trouble 
with many revivals is that the people are preached 
almost to death. They are wearied before the after 
meeting comes, and if decisions do not follow the first 
invitation, there is nothing to do but dismiss the meet- 
ing or there will be a small number out the next night. 
In the revival the meeting is more important than the 
message. A short sermon with a long after meeting 
in which there is time for plenty of action is far better 
than a long sermon, no matter how good it is, and an 
after meeting so short that nothing worth while can be 
done with the message. There should be ample time in 
the after meeting for song, prayer, testimony, and 
several forms of invitation if need be without wearying 
the people. Therefore the sermon is to be a packed, 
powerful, brief message which will lead to action, but 
which will allow ample time for deliberate and intelli- 
gent action. 

2. The preparation for the meeting. It is some- 
times said that real revivals ''come down/' or ''break- 
out," and that they should not be "worked up.*' Re- 
vivals, however, which seem to "come down*' or "break 
out'' are not accidents or oddities. They have been 
worked up, consciously or unconsciously, by a few 



122 EVANGELISM 

deeply spiritual men and women, possibly some of the 
old or sick, who long for a work of grace in the church 
and pray daily for it and the pastor. The revival 
came down by the drawing power of prayer, or it 
broke out by the expulsive power of prayer. No 
great revival comes without a great deal of earnest, 
powerful, and expectant prayer. So a large group of 
cottage meetings should be held for several weeks be- 
fore the revival begins. Very often these cottage 
prayer meetings precipitate the revival a week or two 
before the time planned; then, indeed, it comes down, 
or breaks out. Many times, however, cottage prayer 
meetings accomplish very little because they are not 
focused. It does not do much immediate or specific 
good for a group of people to get together and pray 
in a general way for God's blessing upon a series of 
meetings to be held at a given time. Of course all 
praying does some good; if to no one else, certainly 
the one who offers the prayer is benefited. But prayer 
meetings which are to usher in a revival must be very 
definite, and must for the most part be followed up by 
personal effort of the one who prays ; he himself must 
cooperate with God in answering the prayer. It will 
be a long time before this world will be saved if men 
only pray to God to save it. Prayer and work must 
go together. About the only effective prayers, without 
work, that are offered for conversions are the prayers 
of children, old people, and sick people. They cannot 
ordinarily follow up their prayers with work. For 
the conversion of men God works through men, and 
rarely in any other way. So there is a work that even 
precedes the cottage prayer meetings. To make the 



CONDUCT OF PERIODIC REVIVAL 123 

cottage meetings most effective those who pledge them- 
selves to attend the meetings and take part in them 
should do something more. 

Prayer Lists of Unconverted 

Everyone interested in a revival knows one or more 
persons whom he or she would like to have brought to 
Christ. All the people, then, who support the cottage 
preparatory meetings should make prayer lists of those 
they want to see saved and pray for them daily, in 
private, by name, and in the cottage meetings, where 
the names need not be mentioned. That Would mean 
that all the prayers offered would be prayers with a 
definite object. More than that, the persons who pray 
for their friends in the cottage meetings should do all 
they could by personal effort to answer their own 
prayers between meetings. They could then not only 
pray in the meetings but also report what success they 
had in personal efifort during the week. When any 
considerable number of any church membership under 
the direction of its pastor will do that kind of prepara- 
tory work a revival will be inevitable. Many deci- 
sions will have been made before the revival formally 
opens, and these decisions can be declared early in the 
meetings, and success will attend them from the start. 
Very much evangelistic interest comes to nothing be- 
cause it does not issue in definite action. A revival 
must be planned through, prayed down, and worked 
up. Good planning, earnest praying, and faithful 
working will bring a revival. A revival costs much, 
but it is worth while. Not only has a good revival 
given a church a new lease of life but also has added 



124 EVANGELISM ^ 

hope, faith, and power to many a discouraged minis- 
ter's preaching. 

3. The more specific preparation for the revival 
meetings themselves. From among the people, both 
men and women, who attended the cottage meetings 
the pastor should select the wisest and most successful 
to be his personal workers in the revival. It is not 
wise to call for volunteers for this delicate and diffi- 
cult work, for very often the most tactless and least 
trusted people in the church will respond. They may 
be enthusiasts or hobbyists, or those queer, good peo- 
ple whose queerness offsets their goodness. All such 
people will by one tactless venture often undo the 
careful work of a whole week, and sometimes make 
the whole revival effort fail. Personal workers should 
be selected by the pastor with the greatest care, and 
should be so organized and their work so planned that 
there would be no opportunity for the tactless and dis- 
trusted or ignorant people to do any harm. The whole 
field of personal work should be so covered that there 
would be no occasion, especially in the meetings, for 
anyone to do personal work, except those chosen by 
the pastor. Personal workers should not only be good 
but wise. Foolish goodness is half -badness. Tact- 
less personal workers are obstructionists. I put great 
emphasis upon this, for too great care cannot be ex- 
ercised in the choice of personal workers. 

But even the most efficient personal workers will be 
able to accomplish but little if they work in a hap- 
hazard way. The work for each night must be planned 
so that each worker will know where to be and what to 
do. Of course all plans must be elastic enough to pro- 



CONDUCT OF PERIODIC REVIVAL 125 

vide for the unexpected, but good judgment and tact 
will always provide for emergencies. The workers 
should meet with the pastor each night before the meet- 
ing and plan to cooperate in the closest way with him. 
The workers should know in advance what the pastor 
is going to do, so that any sign he may give them will 
be understood and acted upon at once, and done so 
easily and naturally that the plan will not show to the 
congregation. Some of the personal workers can do 
no better than to call for the unconverted whom they 
have previously seen, take them to church, sit with 
them, and help them in a very judicious way to make 
their decision, by going forward with them, standing 
with them, encouraging them to sign a card, or to 
make any other record of their decision. But the 
worker must not nag, nor urge, nor make the person 
conspicuous or embarrassed. Other personal workers 
will have charge of a small section of pews, and sit in 
such a position that they can see the faces of all that 
are in their section without turning around, or in any 
other way attracting the attention of others, much less 
of disturbing the pastor. The church ought to be 
divided up into sections so that one person could easily 
have charge of a section and do all that needed to be 
done quickly and quietly. 

These workers are invaluable if decision cards are 
used. The workers are to keep the cards out of sight 
until the pastor has made his appeal, read and ex- 
plained very clearly what the card means and what 
signing it involves. Then the workers distribute the 
cards giving one to everybody, so that nobody will be 
made conspicuous. Those who are already Christians 



126 EVANGELISM 

need not sign the cards, but return them to the worker 
when he collects them. 

When the cards are in the people's hands, after their 
use has been explained by the pastor, then the pastor or 
some one on whom he may call should offer a 
brief prayer for God's blessing upon the decisions 
about to be recorded. Another brief prayer should 
follow the signing of them. Cards should not be dis- 
tributed in the pews or in the book racks before the dis- 
tribution is ordered by the pastor, nor should they be 
left lying around after they are used. Personal 
workers should use great care in this respect. All 
signed cards should be turned in to the pastor at the 
close of the meeting; then he and his council should 
divide up the names among themselves, or give them 
to other personal workers, and those who signed the 
cards should be called upon next day, or before the 
next meeting, and should be given such help as might 
be needed and urged to attend the next meeting. 

After Meeting with Seekers and Workers 

Signing cards, standing, raising the hand, or going 
forward are only beginnings. A definite and complete 
work should at once follow. The night following the 
decision at the close of the service an after meeting 
should be called for the workers and all those who 
made decisions. The pastor should have charge of 
this meeting, and give additional instruction to what 
has already been given the night before. This would 
be somewhat of a private meeting, at which the new 
converts might first learn to take part in prayer and 
testimony before doing so in the more public meet- 



CONDUCT OF PERIODIC REVIVAL 127 

ing. Many a person has come to a definite and joyous 
experience in offering his first prayer or in giving his 
first testimony. That which was more or less general 
and indefinite in his decision becomes definite and 
settled when it is put into action. Hence the importance 
of having new converts, as soon as possible, translate 
their religious intention into religious experience 
through action. 

When the appeal is for people to come forward it 
should be pretty clearly understood that there are peo- 
ple there who will come forward. The failure to get 
a response after two or three nights has a very bad 
effect upon both preacher and people. It destroys ex- 
pectation. After a while when the invitation is given, 
nobody expects a response, and the whole thing be- 
comes more or less farcical. Expectant faith is es- 
sential to a successful revival. Some preachers and 
evangelists give the invitation every night from the 
first night to the last, often with meager results. The 
best evangelists and evangelistic pastors defer the in- 
vitation till near the close of the meetings when they 
know that many are ready to make their decision when 
the opportunity is given. That is much the better way. 

Preparation for the Invitation 

It is wise before an invitation to come forward is 
given that it be known, through personal work before 
the meeting, that several persons are ready to go for- 
ward when the opportunity is presented. The pastor 
then will be certain of a response, and the faith of the 
church will be greatly stimulated by such a ready re- 
sponse on the first invitation. Some may here object 



\. 



128 EVANGELISM 

and say : ''Such action shows too much of man's plan- 
ning and too little dependence on the Holy Spirit. If 
there had been more dependence on the Spirit and 
less leaning to human understanding the results would 
have been far greater." But wise and tactful plan- 
ning, accompanied, as all human plans ought to be, 
with prayer, is certainly cooperating with the Holy 
Spirit. If that objection were carried to its logical con- 
clusion, there would be no meetings held at all, for the 
meetings themselves are humanly planned. Before 
Jesus fed the multitude he had them organized. Be- 
fore he called Lazarus from the dead he required the 
human preparation. God's plans and man's plans are 
to harmonize ; neither is to work without the other. It 
is cooperative work. God saves the world through 
human instrumentality. In the meeting it is always 
wise to have what you set out to have. If you set out 
to have an altar service, have it. If seekers will not 
come forward, invite intercessors to represent them — 
parents, Sunday school teachers, personal workers, of- 
ficial members, recent converts. There always will be 
enough people to come with definite purpose to make 
the altar service one of great profit. 

If an invitation in one form will not bring a re- 
sponse, try another. When intercessors are at the 
altar ask for some expression of the unsaved in the 
congregation, such as rising, lifting the hand, or some 
other visible sign so as to give definiteness to the 
prayers of those at the altar. Many sons or daughters 
will yield when they see father or mother at the altar 
interceding for them. That same thing will be true 
when Sunday school pupils see their teachers pleading 



CONDUCT OF PERIODIC REVIVAL 129 

for their conversion ; many will give themselves to God 
who perhaps would not be moved by any other appeal. 
It makes a good ground for an additional appeal by the 
pastor. 

Another form of after meeting is to have an inquiry 
room in which the meeting can be held after the regu- 
lar meeting has been dismissed. To this meeting only 
two classes of people should be invited — those who 
want help and those who are willing to help. That will 
eliminate the impatient, who think that all meetings 
are too long; the indifferent, who are more or less of 
an embarrassment to serious people; and the curious, 
who are nuisances. That meeting will be made up of 
people who mean business and who are not at all con- 
cerned about its length as long as something worth 
while is accomplished. If seekers do not attend, it can 
take the form of a council meeting for prayer and re- 
ports on personal work and some further direction on 
the plans for the next meeting. If seekers do come, they 
can be dealt with more directly and helpfully than in 
the more public meeting. Very often people will come 
and take a stand in a small, semiprivate meeting who are 
too timid to take a stand in the general meeting. The 
inquiry meeting should be very informal. It should 
be a sort of conversational group where the seeker 
could ask questions and any of the workers be free 
to answer as well as the pastor. It is often helpful to 
have testimonies from the older Christians as to how 
they met their first difficulties and what a constant in- 
spiration and help their religion has lieen to them. All 
this helps the new convert or the one about to decide 
for Christ to know that religion is more than a happy 



I30 EVANGELISM 

feeling that might not stand the rough tests of life. 
Those who give themselves to Christ can be asked to 
pray or speak, and thus more firmly establish them- 
selves in the faith than if they had no such oppor- 
tunity. It is a sort of family gathering where they 
can talk things over in a frank and confidential way. 
The inquiry meeting wisely conducted is very effec- 
tive in evangelistic work. 

Divided After Meeting 

Another profitable way of conducting an after meet- 
ing is to divide the congregation, having the men go 
into a separate room and leaving the women in the audi- 
torium. As a rule, the pastor should take charge of 
the men's meeting. The women's meeting can often 
be turned into a prayer service for the success of the 
other meeting. The men's meeting needs a strong and 
frank leadership. It will be observed that men as a 
rule will give public expression to their decision in a 
men's meeting far more readily than in a mixed meet- 
ing. If the pastor is a real man's man, he can do almost 
anything he wants to do with his men when he has them 
by themselves. Men like to be talked to with great 
candor and directness, and the pastor has a great op- 
portunity to do a splendid soul-winning service with 
his men alone. Women, on the other hand, will more 
readily make a public decision in a mixed meeting than 
when they are by themselves. Women seem to be more 
sensitive to the criticism of women than they are to the 
criticism of men, while men are far more sensitive to 
the criticism of women than they are to crit- 



CONDUCT OF PERIODIC REVIVAL 131 

icism by their own sex. Indeed, most men care very 
little about male criticism. It may be that men fear 
that yielding to a religious appeal seems more emo- 
tional than rational, and, therefore, weak; and in 
the presence of women they do not like to show any 
sign of what they may think is weakness. But what- 
ever the cause, the pastor should capitalize the pecu- 
liarity in the interest of the kingdom of God. The 
writer always has had more success in bringing men 
to a decision in a men's meeting than in a mixed meet- 
ing, and he has been more successful in getting deci- 
sions from women in a mixed meeting than in a 
women's meeting. In the course of a long experience 
he has found great value, especially in dealing with 
men in the divided after meeting. 

Still another form of after meeting can be held. 
After the sermon, during the singing of a hymn, all 
who so desire may go, leaving only those who are 
deeply interested, either for themselves or others, in 
the after meeting. That removes occasion for com- 
plaint by those not deeply interested that the meetings 
are tiresome. If any such person remains after there 
is offered an opportunity to go, he has no one to blame 
but himself. 

It is well to vary the after meeting. Ruts are fatal 
to good meetings. The unexpected always adds an 
element of interest and keeps the mind alert, thus sus- 
taining and saving the meeting from the deadening 
power of monotony. It is sometimes wise when the 
sermon has been unusually impressive and the emo- 
tional tension is strong, to close the sermon with the 
benediction and let the people go out silently occupied 



132 EVANGELISM 

with their own thoughts and convictions, wondering 
why the preacher did not give an invitation. 

Very often when the emotional tension is greatest 
there will be the least action of the will; the people 
are too much engrossed with their thoughts and feel- 
ings to act. If an appeal is given at that time it rarely 
results in any response. The minister should not be 
discouraged, for the next night he may have an unu- 
sually good response to an appeal based on a much less 
searching sermon. 

At this point it is easy to make a grave mistake, 
namely, to conclude that it is the less powerful ser- 
mons that bring results and therefore pay little atten- 
tion to the sermon, believing that almost anything will 
do by way of preaching. One will have to try that 
method but a little while to discover that he \wi\\ have 
no results that will be worth mentioning. The best 
action follows the best preaching, though not always 
immediately. The time for action must be carefully 
studied by the preacher and the invitation given when 
there is a reasonable expectation that there will be a 
response. 



CHAPTER V 

CONTINUOUS EVANGELISM 

The periodic revival discussed in the preceding chap- 
ter depends very largely for its success upon what 
might be called a continuous revival; that is, a sus- 
tained evangelistic program running through the year. 
The periodic revival, then, in one month would be the 
climax of the other eleven months of more quiet, but 
none the less persistent, effort. The objection that 
some ministers raise to the periodic revival is that they 
have no aptitude for that form of work. They do 
not think that they are emotional enough to conduct 
a successful revival. That form of work does not 
appeal to them. Some of them, thinking that there is 
no successful evangelistic work other than the periodic 
revival, do no evangelistic work at all. That is a great 
mistake. Some of the most successful evangelistic 
pastors seldom have a periodic revival, but they re- 
ceive converts into the church every month in the year, 
and because it is quietly done in the regular work of 
the church nobody thinks of it as a revival, nor is the 
pastor considered an evangelistic pastor. It is better 
for the converts and better for the church to have 
twenty people join the church each month of the year, 
than to have two hundred and forty come in at once 
who were brought to Christ under the high-pressure 
method of one month. They could be better cared for 



134 EVANGELISM 

and more easily be built into the life of the church. 
Of course it would not make as good advertising as 
the quicker method, but it would be far better for the 
church, for it would keep it expectant and awake to 
every opportunity to win people to Christ. It would 
also greatly help the preacher, for it would assure him 
that his regular work was evangelistically effective. 
His preaching, therefore, would be more direct and 
vital. 

Evangelistic Policy 

But the continuous revival is no more of an accident 
than the periodic one is. Neither of them just happens. 
They are caused; the laws of their success are just as 
determinable as are the laws of a successful harvest or 
prosperous business. If the church is to have a con- 
tinuous revival, it must plan for it; that is, it must 
have an evangelistic policy. It must get the soul-win- 
ning habit. One of the advantages of the continuous 
revival is that everybody can be engaged in it all the 
time. It is not confined to any one time or method; 
each person engaged in it can be doing his work in his 
own way. Not many people have the ability to conduct 
a revival meeting, but everybody has some influence 
with somebody else, and that influence can be capital- 
ized for Christ. 

One person may specialize in getting people to come 
to the church in order that they may be brought under 
the power of the gospel. Another may do a great 
deal of good work by writing tactful, sympathetic let- 
ters. The value of judicious letter-writing cannot be 
overestimated. A letter has certain advantages over a 



CONTINUOUS EVANGELISM 135 

conversation. A letter cannot be interrupted, nor can 
the subject be changed; it has the floor till its message 
is delivered. No matter how often the letter is read it 
always says the same thing in the same way. A con- 
versation may be accidental as the parties meet casu- 
ally, and so it may be neither wise nor timely. But a 
letter is intentional. The writer says what he means to 
say. It is deliberate, carefully thought out, so that the 
person who receives it knows that the writer has been 
thinking about him and therefore must have an interest 
in him — a fact which in itself goes a long way toward 
winning a favorable reception for it. A conversation 
may be forgotten, but a letter can be kept, and more 
often than not will be kept. A conversation may be 
turned into an argument and its very end thus defeated^ 
but not so with a letter ; there is no one to argue with, 
and usually before the reader has time to answer it, 
any irritation that may have been aroused at the first 
reading will be allayed. Very likely that letter will 
later be found among the reader's keepsakes. 

Very few tactful and sympathetic letters in the in- 
terest of other people's souls are either destroyed or 
discourteously answered, especially if the writer is con- 
sistent in his interest in the person to whom he writes 
and if his own character warrants such an evangelistic 
effort. Such letters are answered with great courtesy 
and appreciation, and often lead to a correspondence 
or to interviews the outcome of which may be the con- 
version of the whole family of the person to whom the 
letter was written. 

If the periodic revival is on, letter-writing is not so 
effective, for the reason that the person receiving it 



136 EVANGELISM 

may think that the writer is more interested in the 
success of the meeting than he is in the salvation of his 
soul. But when no special meetings are on and the 
church is just doing its normal work, then for a man to 
get a letter from some one interested in his soul means 
a great deal to him, and is more apt to be effective. 
The genuineness of the writer's interest at that time 
is far more apparent than if everybody were doing 
something unusual for a short time. The continuous 
revival gives a good opportunity for the cultivation of 
the habit of helpful letter-writing. 

Others still may interview men at their offices briefly 
and to the point on the matter of God's business and 
with just as much frankness and persistence as they do 
on the matter of man's business. That is a great art. 
Happy is the man who can do it well. Young people 
can do effective team work with other young people. 
Every person and organization in the church can be 
utilized in the continuous revival, but none of the work 
should be done in a haphazard way ; everything should 
be carefully planned and skillfully executed. In no 
place is blundering so fatal as in evangelistic work. The 
pastor must frequently check up on it, and often be in 
council with his workers, so that he may know how the 
work is being carried forward. Frequent reports from 
individuals and organizations is a good way to get 
work done and to get it intelligently and effectively 
done. Having to report is fatal to idlers. If no re- 
ports are called for, part of the work will be badly done 
by those who do not know how to do it and part of it 
will be left undone by those well meaning people "who 
are always going to do something but never get any 



CONTINUOUS EVANGELISM 137 

farther than their good resolutions. Reports are 
fundamental to getting work done. Of course in all 
this work the pastor must be the leader. It will come 
with ill grace for him to require reports of others if 
he has not something to report himself. 

Long Pastorates 

This kind of evangelism cannot best be done in short 
pastorates. It takes time to win the confidence of the 
community and lay those lines of siege that are so 
effective in long pastorates. The pastor must become 
a helpful factor in all the interests of community life — 
indeed, in a way he must become the conscience of the 
community before he will be most effective in contin- 
uous evangelism. Hard-headed business men will want 
to know what he stands for in all the affairs of the 
community before they will give him audience to talk 
to them privately on the matters of their souls. These 
men may be good citizens though they may not be 
Christians, and they want to know whether the pastor 
is as good a citizen as he is a Christian. If the pastor 
has made good on the claims of men, they will listen 
to him on the claims of God; indeed, if he has not 
made good on the claims of men, he has little right 
to press on others the claims of God. 

The periodic revival can be gotten up in a few 
months after the pastor gets on a new field, and if he 
is a successful conductor of public meetings he may 
have a successful revival, for in such a case it will not 
matter very much whether he is well known or not ; 
much will depend on how well be can conduct the meet- 
ings. But to carry on successfully a quiet campaign of 



138 EVANGELISM 

personal work throughout the year in the church and 
out of it, he must not only be well known but thor- 
oughly trusted. The goodness of his character and the 
soundness of his judgment must be above suspicion. 
Continuous evangelism cannot be done well where a 
pastor takes a church only as an expedient, with no 
intention of seriously settling down to solve the re- 
ligious problems of his community. The restlessness 
of both pastor and people is detrimental to good evan- 
gelistic work of any kind. It requires greater tact, 
skill, and consecration to conduct a long, quiet cam- 
paign, which is a sustained hunt for souls, than it does 
to work up and carry through a few weeks of high- 
pressure meetings. In the continuous revival the 
stimulus of the unusual is lacking, and there is no such 
high level of enthusiasm as there is in the other kind 
of revival, but in the long pastorates the continuous 
revival is far more fruitful in permanent results. 

Training Personal Workers 

Another thing that the continuous revival presup- 
poses is the training of personal workers. This is diffi- 
cult work, and it must be done with great care and 
skill. It is also discouraging work, for as soon as one 
band of workers is trained many of the band will move 
away and the work will all have to be done over again ; 
but, of course, there will be this compensation in it: 
trained workers will thus be scattered among other 
churches, and they may become the trainers of still 
other bands, the result being that the Kingdom's work 
will be better done. 

As personal workers must be chosen with great care, 



CONTINUOUS EVANGELISM 139 

the draft system is better than the volunteering system, 
for, as previously stated, those who volunteer are often 
the very persons who ought not to do that work at all. 
They do not sense the seriousness of the work, nor do 
they regard special preparation as at all necessary for 
it. 

The pastor may have to begin with two or three 
who will quietly work with him or under his direc- 
tion. Then others as they are found and tested may 
be added. But these personal workers are not to take 
the pastor's place in evangelism. They are to use all 
their skill and wisdom in a great variety of ways, but 
always under the leadership of the pastor. They are 
to be his council. He should train them in the art of 
soul-winning and supervise their work until they be- 
come experts. Then when he leaves, this group of 
trained workers will be an invaluable staff for his suc- 
cessor. They will keep the spiritual life of the church 
at a high level, and will enable a new pastor to do 
fundamental work from the beginning. These per- 
sonal workers also can be the friends and helpers of 
all new converts who come into the church, and to 
strangers who come by letter from other churches. In 
a church where there are frequent conversions through 
the year almost everybody will feel at home. They can 
also help in other forms of church work, such as teach- 
ing in the Sunday school and giving spiritual leader- 
ship to young people's work. 

All the interests of the church are best served when 
its main business, the winning of souls, is kept to the 
front. Happy is the church that has in its member- 
ship a great numl:)er of people — young and old, men 



I40 EVANGELISM 

and women — who are successful soul-winners. In 
very many cases, where continuous evangelism is car- 
ried through the year, a revival will break out which 
will absorb all the interest and attention of the 
church for several weeks; and a pastor who has been 
through one revival which comes as the climax of his 
steady evangelism will feel at home in the periodic re- 
vival ever afterward, and, indeed, may become an ex- 
pert in conducting such meetings. 

Nothing can take the place of pastoral evangelism, 
and when the pastor feels that there is no conventional 
type of evangelism to which he must conform, but that 
any method which gets people to God is good evan- 
gelism, his own ministry not only will be a successful 
one, but the church committed to his care will be a 
prosperous and happy church. He ought to employ 
every means that he can command to advance the 
kingdom of God, keeping always in mind that he is 
called and commissioned by Jesus Christ to be a soul- 
winner. He is to help to make disciples of all the na- 
tions under the leadership of his Divine Master. 



PART III 
SUNDAY SCHOOL EVANGELISM 



CHAPTER I 

OPPORTUNITY AND RESPONSIBILITY 

The Sunday school is the most hopeful and fruitful 
field for evangelism that the church has to-day. Sun- 
day school evangelism is very largely a work of con- 
servation, the object of which is to prevent the young 
people of the church from going into sin. If the 
Sunday school clearly sees its opportunity and faith- 
fully does its work, the church will have little to fear 
about the wastage of its young life. The Sunday 
school has the young people of the church from the 
Cradle Roll to the Adult Bible Class ; that is, from in- 
fancy up to middle life and after. If it is alive to its 
opportunity and has an intelligent evangelistic policy, 
it will make the age period covered by the Primary 
and Junior Departments a period of careful prepara- 
tion, so that when the ''teen'' age — which is the age of 
highest religious susceptibility — is reached, there will be 
little difficulty in winning almost every boy and girl 
in the school to Christ. They would be prepared to 
make a definite and intelligent decision for Christ and 
would expect to do so if they had the opportunity. It 
is stated that about sixty per cent of the pupils go out 
of the Sunday school without l)ecoming Christians. 
This is because most Sunday schools have not a definite 
evangelistic policy. No well-managed factory would 
waste three fifths of its raw material for want of a 

M3 



144 EVANGELISM 

good business policy, yet that is about what the Sun- 
day schools are doing. 

The evangelistic responsibility of the Sunday school 
does not rest with any one person but with many per- 
sons. Here it is easy to pass the responsibihty along. 
The pastor may say that evangelism in the Sunday 
school is a matter for the superintendent to look after, 
that the school is his church and he ought to be re- 
sponsible for its evangelism. The superintendent may 
say that he does not come into close personal relation 
with the pupils, but the teachers do, and as evangelism 
is a personal matter the responsibility rests with the 
teacher. The teacher may say that if the parents did 
their duty as parents in the religious training of their 
children there would be no need of Sunday school 
evangelism at all, therefore the responsibility rests with 
the parents. The parents may say, "That is what we 
pay our minister to do ; if he fails to do it, the fault is 
his, not ours.'' And so the vicious circle moves round 
and round, each one passing the responsibility along to 
some one else, while the children are deprived of their 
rights. This passing along of responsibihty may not 
be consciously done, but each of the parties takes for 
granted that some one else is taking care of the situa- 
tion, the result being that the work does not get done 
at all. 

Pastor's Responsibility 

As a matter of fact, all the persons named are re- 
sponsible, each in his own way and to the extent of his 
ability and opportunity. The pastor has a responsibility 
because he has an opportunity, and a very great one 



OPPORTUNITY— RESPONSIBILITY 145 

too. The Sunday school is a part, and a very important 
part, of his church, and nothing will excuse him for 
neglecting that part of his evangelistic field. Many 
pastors plead a lack of time and strength for Sunday 
school work. But that excuse is no more valid than if 
a business man should say that the pressure of his busi- 
ness is so great that he must neglect his family. If that 
is so, he has no right to have a family. If the pastor, 
as a rule, has no time for his Sunday school, he does 
not deserve one. No preacher needs to feel compli- 
mented on his fine preaching or on his large floating 
congregation if the salvation of his own Sunday school 
children is neglected. If he does not think it worth 
while to evangelize the young life which is put into his 
hands and is more responsive to his appeal than other 
people with whom he deals, there is little hope that 
he will ever be a successful pastor evangelist. He had 
far better let other people do a great deal of the work 
about the church that saps his strength and give more 
of his time to the Sunday school, where it will count 
for the most. 

The Sunday evening service is no longer the evan- 
gelistic opportunity that it used to be, for the reason 
that most of the young people after they attend the 
Sunday school and the young people's service do not 
go to the evening preaching service. One of the best 
ways to get the young people to attend the evening 
church service is for the pastor to attend their service 
and show such a friendly interest in them that they 
will feel it is their duty and privilege to attend his 
service. Young people are loyal to any one who is 
loyal to them. If he is regularly at the Sunday school, 



146 EVANGELISM 

he will find a large number of the older Sunday school 
pupils at the evening service. 

The pastor ought not to teach a class if he can help 
it, for that shuts him up to a small part of the school. 
Sometimes it is necessary for him to teach a class to 
hold it to the school, especially if it is a class of young 
men. As a rule, he ought to move freely about through 
the school, so that all the pupils will know him, and 
he will have the opportunity of saying a word of cheer 
in all the departments as well as to individual pupils. 
It will be impossible for him to be in the school every 
Sunday. A pastor, like a physician, is always subject 
to emergency calls, but barring these he ought to be 
in his Sunday school whenever it is possible. 

The pastor cannot expect that his influence will be 
great in the school if he attends it only on special days, 
such as Rally Day, Decision Day, Christmas, Easter, 
and Children's Day. If he attends only at such times, 
he will be considered by the school only as one of the 
visitors, for on those occasions there will be many 
visitors. The pastor should never be thought of as a 
visitor. He should be thought of by the pupils as their 
personal friend, and as intimately related to the school 
as the superintendent and teachers are. 

The Pastor and the Boy Problem 

The pastor can do much toward getting the men of 
the church to attend the Sunday school. When that 
is done the boy problem will be solved to a great extent. 
Boys will not get to the place where they feel they are 
too old for the Sunday school if a large number of men 
regularly attend. The Sunday school no longer will be 



OPPORTUNITY— RESPONSIBILITY 147 

thought of as a child's institution, but it will be con- 
sidered a real school of religion, where none are too 
young to be admitted and none too old to remain. 

The pastor must realize that the Sunday school of 
to-day is his church of to-morrow. If he is to have 
an evangelistic church to-morrow, he must have an 
evangelistic school to-day. Pie is to set the example to 
superintendent, teacher, and parent in the work of 
evangelism. 

As the pastor moves about in the school he can easily 
find out what is being taught, whether the work the 
teachers are doing both in teaching and in discipline 
is conducive to evangelism or subversive of it. If the 
pupils are not being led to Christ, he can find out why they 
are not. If certain teachers are to blame, the pastor 
and superintendent working together can make such 
adjustments in the teaching stafif and such organiza- 
tion of classes as will prevent, or at least minimize 
any work that would be obstructive to evangelism. The 
pastor could find some other kind of work about the 
church which would not directly affect evangelistic ef- 
fort, and put the inefficient or undesiral)le teachers 
at that work, thus eliminating altogether the obstructive 
forces of the school. The evangelistic emphasis should 
be put so strongly before the teachers that no one 
out of sympathy with it or hostile to it would want to 
remain on the teaching staff. 

Teachers, of course, are to be allowed large liberty 
as to method. Each teacher, for the most part, should 
do his evangelistic work in his own way so long as he 
gets the work done. If he wins his class for Christ, it 
makes little ditTerence how he does it. The result is 



148 EVANGELISM 

the main thing, not the method. That principle the 
pastor should safeguard so well that no teacher would 
have his own initiative destroyed, nor would he have 
forced on him a method so out of keeping with his 
temperament and ability that he could not work it. 
The general principle could be taught by the pastor, 
but the details of working it out should largely be left 
with the teachers, when they have been fired with a 
passion to win their pupils to Christ. 

One of the greatest factors in the pastor's success in 
evangelism in the Sunday school is to have a clearly 
thought out evangelistic policy and program for the 
school; and in the development of these he should re- 
ceive the heartiest cooperation of both the superintend- 
ent and the teachers. He should never spring an evan- 
gelistic surprise on the school which would confuse 
or embarrass his superintendent and teachers. They 
should feel that they have his utmost confidence. It 
will be in the closest cooperation with them that the 
pastor will get his best work done. 

The pupils need not know beforehand what the pas- 
tor is going to do, but the cooperating staff of the 
school ought to know, so that they can fall right in 
with it, and see it through to a successful issue. A 
well-planned effort by the pastor may utterly fail be- 
cause no one knew of it beforehand and so could not 
cooperate in carrying it out 

The Pastor and the Home 

The pastor can make a large indirect contribution to 
Sunday school evangelism in his pastoral work by en- 
listing the sympathy and cooperation of the parents in 



OPPORTUNITY— RESPONSIBILITY 149 

the efforts that are being made by the school, and par- 
ticularly the teachers, for the salvation of the children. 
Very much more could be done than is done in Sunday 
school evangelism if the parents and teachers did better 
team work. It often happens that the parents don't 
know the teachers of their children even by sight, let 
alone know what the teachers are doing to win those 
children to Christ. The pastor can do a fine piece of 
work here that will be reflected in the school in a very 
wonderful way. Very often the parents do not under- 
stand either the motive or method of the teacher in 
evangelistic work, and they think that the teacher is 
bringing undue pressure to bear upon the children in 
asking them to make a decision, or to take steps far 
beyond their years. They declare that the children do 
not know what they are doing, and therefore they as 
parents resent such procedure, even sometimes writing 
the teachers to mind their own business and informing 
them that they will attend to their children's religion 
themselves. They will often make their complaint to 
the pastor, and tell him that unless that kind of work 
ceases they will take their children out of the Sunday 
school. This offers a fine opportunity for the pastor 
to say a good word about the teacher, and have a very 
plain, frank talk with the parents. When parents fully 
understand the noble and sacrificial work of the 
teachers they will rarely refuse cooperation. All the 
cooperative work of the home is quickly and power- 
fully felt in the Sunday school. Here is an oppor- 
tunity that no pastor should let go unused. 

The establishment of the family altar in the home, 
which the pastor may encourage or secure, will con- 



ISO EVANGELISM 

tribute largely to Sunday school evangelism. But one 
of the most important things that the pastor can do 
in Sunday school evangelism is to safeguard what is 
called child conversion and keep it from being distorted 
or being misunderstood. Nothing is much more mis- 
chievous in religious work with young people than to 
expect such a religious experience of them as might 
be expected of people in middle life, yet that is often 
done. Some people expect the same phenomena in the 
conversion of a boy of fourteen who has never gone 
wrong, as in a man forty, who has sowed his wild oats, 
played the fool, and has become morally disfigured by 
sin. In both cases they expect the same remorse for 
sin, the same bitter repentance, the same radical con- 
trast in living, and the same joy at the change that 
takes place. Such a position is absurd. The cases 
are in no way parallel and should not be compared 
for points of resemblance. In the case of the well- 
brought up boy who at fourteen makes his decision 
for Christ, he is only doing now deliberately what up 
to this time he had taken for granted. If he had been 
asked at ten, or perhaps twelve, if he was a Christian, 
he would have answered "Yes.'' It did not occur 
to him that he was not a Christian. This, of course, 
presupposes that he was carefully brought up by Chris- 
tian parents, as many Sunday school boys and girls 
are. At fourteen this boy, for the first time, takes a 
public stand for Christ. Perhaps it is the first oppor- 
tunity he has had to do it. Of course there will be no 
weeping over sins which the boy is not conscious that 
he ever committed, there will be no marked contrast 
between a life darkened by sin and one lighted up by 



OPPORTUNITY— RESPONSIBILITY 151 

the forgiving grace of God. There will very likely be 
no marked change of feeling except in the satisfaction 
of now having put on record the feelings and beliefs 
he had long cherished. To ask him to weep over his 
sins and beg for mercy in order that his conversion 
might conform to the type of a hardened sinner would 
be wicked. If he did, he would have to be insincere 
in his tears and prayers. This would not be true of 
every boy of fourteen, but it would be true of many 
boys and girls of that age, and true of more boys and 
girls from ten to twelve; and it might be true of not 
a few up to sixteen years of age. 

With such children what is called conversion might 
more truly be called consecration. They really go for- 
ward now by their own deliberate decision, with the 
Christ whom they have followed more or less uncon- 
sciously. They do not turn around and face the other 
way, as an old sinner does. But Christ now gives them 
the grace and help they need to live the Christian life as 
they come to him just as he does the sinner who has 
been converted from the error of his wa3^ 

Wherever deliberate and willful sin has been com- 
mitted there should be deliberate and thorough re- 
pentance, which is not so much a revulsion of feeling 
as a change of mind, a change which turns the wrong 
attitude of the life toward God into the right attitude. 
That conversion will express itself quietly or enthusi- 
astically according to the temperament of the individ- 
ual. If the person is highly emotional, that is the kind 
of conversion he most likely will have, while a quiet, 
deliberate, calculating person will have a conversion 
whose expression will be in keeping with his tempera- 



152 EVANGELISM 

ment. It is folly to try to fit all kinds of people in a 
Sunday school or rescue mission — ^young and old, well 
brought up and ill brought up — into the same form 
of repentance and into the same mold of conversion. 
The thing cannot be done, and to insist upon it is to 
lose most of the people who ought to be won for Christ. 
It is because some teachers very innocently try to do 
this that the pastor must be alert all the time to see 
that no child is misled, discouraged, or be caused to 
expect that something will happen in a way which 
from the nature of things in his case will not and 
ought not to happen. There will be morbid and 
precocious children, but they will be the exception, 
and a wise pastor will deal exceptionally with them. 
But handling all children as though they were morbid 
or precocious is senseless, unjust, and absurd. 

The form that children's so-called conversion will 
take, whether of consecration or conversion, going 
straight on or turning around, will depend largely on 
temperament, training, and environment. The main 
thing is to get them to commit themselves to Christ in 
a simple, whole-hearted, and intelligent way. They 
need to be made to see that religion is not a thing that 
they gtty but a loving relationship of trust and obedi- 
ence to Jesus Christ. All else that is necessary may 
be taught them later on in the training class for pre- 
paratory membership. It is at this point that the pas- 
tor can be of great value to the teacher and the child in 
Sunday school evangelism. The pastor must instruct 
the parents both from the pulpit and in the home in 
what is to be expected of children who give themselves 
to Christ, and what is to be done for them. Certainly, 



OPPORTUNITY— RESPONSIBILITY 153 

too much must not be expected of them and, certainly, 
too httle must not be done for them. They will need 
much help, sympathy, and patience in their religious 
life, for they need all this in their physical and intel- 
lectual life. They are adolescents and hardly under- 
stand themselves, and few people understand them. 
At this time of their life they can be easily marred or 
mended, and that permanently. The pastor's part in 
the evangelistic meeting in the Sunday school will be 
discussed under ''Decision Day." The only thing that 
is attempted here is to point out that the pastor has 
both the opportunity and the responsibility of evangel- 
istic activity and oversight in the Sunday school. 

Superintendent's Opportunity 

The superintendent has a responsibility because he 
has an opportunity. He is the ofificial head of the Sun- 
day school, and should feel not only the responsibility 
for its largest and most vital success, but should also 
feel the privilege of being intrusted with the religious 
guidance of the young life of the church. If he is a 
man of strong leadership, he can make the school about 
what he wants it to be. If he is interested in evan- 
gelism and sympathetic toward it, he can make evan- 
gelism very effective in his school. If he is unsym- 
pathetic toward it, he can make it almost an impossi- 
bility to do any effective evangelistic work in the school. 
He can very easily dissipate any profound impression 
that the teacher makes on the pupils by an incongruous 
closing exercise. He can make it almost impossible 
for a teacher to create a deep evangelistic impression 
by allowing all sorts of interruptions during the lesson 



154 EVANGELISM 

period and having a general disorder during the clos- 
ing moments of the school. He can make a whole ses- 
sion seem ridiculous by having some roving stranger 
who tells funny stories and talks nonsense generally, 
address the school. 

If the superintendent has no evangelistic policy or 
program for the school, or if he is unsympathetic, or 
hostile toward one, it is almost useless to attempt any 
public evangelistic effort in the school at all. The 
teachers may quietly and privately work with their 
pupils, but a public exercise in evangelism would be 
almost certain to fail, in which case the best piece of 
constructive evangelism would be to get a new superin- 
tendent. A great, sustained opportunity ought not to 
be wasted for the sake of one person. Better, if need 
be, to make one man and his family mad, and save 
five hundred boys and girls^ than to humor that one 
man and let that host of young people pass through 
the school unsaved. The pastor should do all that he 
can to prevent any person holding any office in the 
church when that office would be used by that person 
to defeat the very object for which the church and 
Sunday school exist. 

The wise superintendent will do a great many things 
which indirectly are of great value in Sunday school 
evangelism. He will protect the teacher against inter- 
ruption of any sort while the lesson is being taught. He 
will allow no one to address the school who will strike 
a discordant note in the session's program, or who will 
in any way make the dose of a Sunday school hour 
ridiculous or frivolous. He will have frequent 
teachers' prayer meetings, in which the evangelistic 



OPPORTUNITY— RESPONSIBILITY 155 

emphasis will be strong. He will have council meet- 
ings with the teachers about their work, and especially 
about their success in winning their pupils to Christ. 
When he knows that a group of teachers are working 
to win their classes he will arrange his closing exercises 
so that they will help the teachers to focus the lesson 
in some form of appeal that will be fruitful of results. 
He can invite pupils as classes or individually to his 
home occasionally and have a frank talk with them 
on the matter of their personal salvation. He can go 
to the homes of the pupils who are interested in re- 
ligion and talk to them there with their parents. He 
can write letters to many upon whom he would not have 
time to call. He can strongly urge the Senior depart- 
ment and the adult Bible classes to attend the Sunday 
evening preaching service, and then be there himself to 
give them a welcome when they come and invite them 
to come again. By talking the church, the preacher, and 
the teacher up he will go a long way toward arousing 
not only interest but enthusiasm in the pupils. He will 
select his teachers with evangelism in view. Other 
things being equal, he will choose the teachers most 
sympathetic to that work. He will also make the aim 
of the school ''Every member of the school for Christ,'' 
and he will organize the school, select the teachers, and 
prepare the session program to that end. In a word, he 
will fit his program to his policy. He will invite men 
to address the Sunday school who have made a success 
in life, in business, in the professions, to show that 
religion is a help, and not a hindrance, to success in life. 
He will have travelers speak whenever he can, who will 
show what a difference Christianity made in the non- 



156 EVANGELISM 

Christian world, in the establishment of schools and 
churches, in introducing better sanitary methods, cul- 
tivating a purer home life, more ethical business 
methods, a finer patriotism, etc. He will have mission- 
aries come and tell of the needs of the non-Christian 
world, and the great opportunity the mission field offers 
as a lifework to young people to help establish the 
kingdom of God in the earth. He can have a prayer 
list of the unconverted members of the school, for 
whom he himself would pray daily and get others to 
do the same. He can take his teachers when they be- 
come discouraged, as they often do because their classes 
are restless, inattentive, or unresponsive, and give them 
new heart and hope by showing his sympathy for them 
and his kindly interest in them. He can skillfully re- 
move teachers that are not effective by giving them 
some other kind of Sunday school work to do for which 
they are better fitted. In this, as in all other matters 
relating to the highest interest of the school, he can 
be in heartiest cooperation with the pastor. 

The Session Program 

The superintendent should prepare his session pro- 
gram with as much care as the pastor prepares for his 
pulpit. With the graded lesson system it is not always 
easy to preserve unity in the day's program, and very 
difficult to keep an evangelistic unity based on the les- 
sons because they are so diverse in subject-matter and 
treatment. While pedagogically it is far better, many 
think, than the International Lesson system, it has a 
disadvantage in that there is no unity of thought 
throughout the school. This fact makes an evangelistic 



OPPORTUNITY— RESPONSIBILITY 157 

appeal difficult unless the whole program of the day 
has been arranged for it, as it would be on Decision 
Day, or some other special day, like Christmas or Eas- 
ter or Children's Day. That being so, the superin- 
tendent can meet the difficulty by having a carefully pre- 
pared session program, which will give unity to the 
whole session, independent of how many different 
kinds of lessons are being taught in the classes. 

The hymns, the Scripture lesson of the opening serv- 
ice may be followed in the closing service with a con- 
clusion which will be the climax of the opening service, 
and which will provide a natural place for evangelistic 
emphasis, or even a direct appeal. A cumulative ses- 
sion plan can be laid out for a quarter or six months, 
heading up in some kind of a decision service. The 
superintendent should plan his session program, es- 
pecially in its evangelistic features, with the pastor, for 
the pastor's experience and judgment will be of great 
importance to a layman not so used to such a pro- 
gram. Of course it would not be well to stress evan- 
gelism every Sunday, but it should always be the gen- 
eral atmosphere of the school, so that any teacher might 
have a Decision Day on any Sunday in his class, and 
the whole atmosphere and attitude of the school would 
be favorable to it. 

The Pastor's Counsel on Soul-Winning 

The pastor ought to attend the teachers' prayer meet- 
ings, which ought to be led by the superintendent. At 
these meetings the pastor could give the teachers valu- 
able counsel on soul-winning. In this way, many a 
timid teacher would learn to lead his or her class to 



158 EVANGELISM 

Christ. Most teachers would love to do it if they only 
knew how. The most fruitful Sunday school revivals 
are born in teachers' prayer meetings. 

All special days should be used in some effective 
way to bring a personal religious message to each 
pupil's heart. 

The wise superintendent will have a careful over- 
sight of the lives of the boys and girls between Sun- 
days. He needs to make himself such a friend to them 
that they will make him their confidential adviser and 
bring to him all their personal problems. He must set 
a high goal for the school, and then enlist the coopera- 
tion of pastor, teacher, pupil, and parent to try to 
reach it. 

The office of superintendent should not be taken by 
anyone who only wants it for the honor of it, or if he 
intends to make it a convenience. Only he who takes 
it seriously, and considers it a fine field for lay evan- 
gelism and religious culture, and who proposes to real- 
ize that end in it, ought to be a Sunday school super- 
intendent. The responsibility of the office might de- 
press one, but the glory and opportunity of it will in- 
spire one. To be the lay pastor of the young life of the 
church is such a privilege that it should be coveted by 
the brightest and most consecrated men of the church. 

The Teacher's Opportunity 

The teacher has a responsibility because he has 
the best opportunity of any one in the school to come 
into personal touch with the individual pupil. The 
teacher is the key person in the Sunday school for dis- 
cipline, instruction, and evangelism. Nothing worth 



OPPORTUNITY— RESPONSIBILITY 1 59 

speaking of can be done in the school, either rehgiously 
or intellectually, without the cooperation of the teacher. 
The class is the Sunday school unit, and the teacher 
is the key to the class. Because religion is so gen- 
erally neglected in the home the teacher's work be- 
comes all the more important. He has about the first 
chance at the child religiously. His work is evangel- 
istic and cultural. 

A tactful teacher can keep the evangelistic emphasis 
always at the front without being obnoxious or ever 
nagging the pupils. It is easy to put and keep at the 
front the truth that the chief end of life is to be in 
right relation to God and man; that life is to find 
its highest ideal in character and its finest expression 
in service. With that kind of an emphasis a personal 
appeal to dedicate the life to that high purpose w^ould 
never seem farfetched nor unnatural. 

Some teachers have been very successful in reaching 
every member of the class for Christ, by making prayer 
lists of the unconverted, and praying for them by 
name every day, and then putting forth every possible 
effort, wisely and sympathetically, to answer their own 
prayers. Frequent private interviews with individual 
members of the class have often proved successful. 
The recreation side of life often offers splendid evan- 
gelistic opportunities. If it is playing games, then to 
play the game in an honest, manly way is a good intro- 
duction to saying that life is a game and it should be 
played so fairly, honestly, and courageously that God, 
who is looking on, would approve it. Such talk should 
never be prudish or have the flavor of cant about it. 
It should be as natural and matter of fact as if it were 



i6o EVANGELISM 

concerned with a good clean, honest game of football, 
baseball, tennis, or golf. Religion is not to be thought 
of or spoken of as a detached thing that has little to do 
with life betw^een Sundays. The religious life is the 
noblest Hfe that can be lived all the days. 

But it is unreasonable to expect too much of teachers. 
Many of them are poorly equipped to teach, and that 
through no fault of their own. Then, too, many of 
them are very busy people, and have few facilities for 
lesson preparation, and yet they willingly give of their 
time and strength, and do the best they can, and for 
that they have, or ought to have, great commendation. 
Many of just such teachers have been successful soul- 
winners. They were not able to give their classes 
much valuable instruction, but they did lead them to 
Christ. Of course, when to fine teaching equipment 
there is added a passion for souls and a devotion to the 
class, such teachers are the most effective Sunday 
school evangelists the church has. 

The teacher's evangelistic program will issue through 
three avenues of approach : 

Avenues of Approach 

(i) Through the Bible. It is unfortunate that so 
few teachers have their Bibles in the class, and that 
still fewer require that their pupils use their Bibles in 
class. Lesson leaves and quarterlies, which are of 
immense value in lesson preparation, are too generally 
used in class instead of the Bible. The result is that 
the pupils do not get acquainted with the Bible as a 
book, and its gripping messages therefore do not ap- 
peal to them. To the average Sunday school pupil a 



OPPORTUNITY— RESPONSIBILITY i6i 

lesson leaf has not much authority. When the lesson 
is over, the leaf can be thrown into the wastebasket, or 
along the street or road on their way home. They do 
not have the reverence for the lesson leaf that they 
would for the Bible, and it is harder to base an appeal 
on it than if they handled the Bible itself and could 
turn to its counsels and read them for themselves. 

Then, too, nothing creates a love for the Bible like 
the study of it. It is easy to make an appeal to a class 
when everyone in the class has a Bible open at some 
lesson which is in itself a strong appeal. The subject 
of religion is always introduced, and the lesson of the 
Book can at once be applied to the needs of the class. 

The Bible is the most fascinating book in the world 
when it is understood. It makes a strong appeal to the 
wonder-loving age. Its stories, heroes, ideals, prac- 
tical maxims; its friendships; its fine courage; its 
frankness, sympathy, strength, and tenderness ; its clear 
warnings, inspiring promises; its beautiful poetry, deep 
philosophy, lofty religion; its picture of God, history 
of Jesus — all this makes it an irresistible book which 
the teacher can bring home to the eager-minded youth 
of the class. When a love of the Bible, through a 
knowkdge of it, has been inspired in a class they are 
more than half won to Christ. The teacher can make 
them see that the Bible is a young people's book for 
to-day, as well as an old people's book for to-morrow. 
It is a book to live by more than it is to die by. It 
is an everyday book as well as a Sunday book. There 
is no part of life to which it does not apply. If they 
can be made to see its practical value, quite apart from 
any of its academic difiiculties of date, :mtli<M-ship, etc., 



i62 EVANGELISM 

their faith would not be so often shaken when they go 
to college, and under new and larger light have to sur- 
render many of their traditional beliefs. This shift of 
intellectual attitude will not affect their faith in the 
Bible if they have tried it out in practical life and found 
that it worked. They know and have felt its religious 
power whether they can solve all its academic problems 
or not. If they have been brought into a loving fel- 
lowship with Jesus Christ, and have a rich Christian 
experience through the study of the Bible, their faith 
will be strengthened rather than weakened in the Bible 
by every new ray of light that can be thrown upon it. 
The Bible is its own best commentary. Many of the 
Old Testament's difficulties, especially of its ethics, 
are solved by revelation when it is complete in the 
New Testament, especially in the life and teachings of 
Jesus. 

A broad and sympathetic use of the Bible in the 
class will give the teacher a weekly opportunity for 
quiet and tactful evangelism, which will climax with 
great success on Decision Day. 

(2) The second avenue of approach is through the 
religious experience of the teacher. The teacher can 
make the Christian life attractive by being an attrac- 
tive Christian. Example is always more powerful 
than precept, especially to young people. The kind of 
a Christian life their teacher lives will appeal to them 
far more strongly than any kind of a life that can be 
recommended, or any good life that was lived hundreds 
of years ago. They want to see how religion works 
to-day. 

Very often young people think of the Christian life 



^ 



OPPORTUNITY— RESPONSIBILITY 163 

as something very unreal and heavenly that old saints 
or inspired people lived years ago, that it is an ideal 
which is well to keep in mind but cannot be lived by 
one in the world to-day. Perhaps in no place is it 
more difficult to live an exemplary life and show a 
real Christian spirit of tact and grace and patience than 
before a class of restless, inattentive boys or giggling 
girls, who think of little else than beaus and dress. 
Both boys and girls will get over that and settle down 
to be fine young men and women, but in the time of 
it they test the patience and grace of the average teacher 
almost to the breaking point. Happy is that teacher 
who, under such trying circumstances, can show such 
strength and tenderness, such grace and patience, such 
tact and sympathy, such humor and reverence, that his 
life is the ideal of Christianity realized before the class. 
When the members of the class say, *Tf what our 
teacher lives is the Christian life, we want to be Chris- 
tians,'' that teacher is a living embodiment of personal 
evangelism. It is easy for that teacher to invite his 
pupils to be Christians. His life is a sustained in- 
vitation. 

The boys and girls of the ''teen*' age for the most 
part are hero worshipers. It is the strong, brave, self- 
sacrificing life that appeals to them and when they see 
a Christian actually living those splendid qualities in 
a natural and winsome way it is not difficult to win 
them to that kind of a life. But they despise any- 
thing that is weak, sentimental, or so ''other worldly'* 
that it does not touch the ground in this world. They 
want a religion that fights battles, faces dangers, en- 
dures hardships, plays games, and does all other things 



i64 EVANGELISM 

that are of a high order. When that type of religion 
is lived before them, and put to them, they usually 
respond to it with great readiness. 

It is not always easy to find a teacher who combines 
all these fine traits, but many of these traits can be 
cultivated for the teacher's own sake, as well as for 
the sake of the class. The superintendent should be 
very careful in the selection of his teachers if he ex- 
pects to have a successful evangelistic policy in his 
Sunday school. 

(3) The third avenue of approach is to give the 
pupils the correct ideas about God. To most people old 
or young, Christian or not, God does not seem to be 
anywhere around. He is somewhere above the sky, in 
heaven — wherever that may be — but certainly he is 
not down in the everyday life of the world. The 
teacher is to disabuse the pupils' minds of any such 
foolish notion. He needs to assure them of God's 
presence in the class, of his interest in and sympathy 
for every member of it. Little children have no diffi- 
culty in believing this. To them God is very real and 
very near. They talk to him as they do to their own 
parents, and beheve that he will answer their prayers. 
It is a sad thing when their sky lifts and God recedes 
into an indefinite ^'somewhere." The teacher should 
keep their belief in the nearness and goodness of God 
as vital and clear as possible, and in no way can that 
be done better than in practicing the presence of God 
himself and talking to God in prayer as though he was 
right there. If the teacher feels the immediate pres- 
ence of God, it will go a long way toward making the 
pupils feel it too. 



■ 



OPPORTUNITY— RESPONSIBILITY 165 

The pupils must not think of God as an infinite po- 
liceman or jailor or even a monarch sitting on a throne 
somewhere off in the universe, no one knows just 
where; but they do need to think of him as a loving 
and good Father, as he is seen in Jesus Christ. "He 
that hath seen me hath seen the Father'' (John 14. 9) 
is a truth that the teacher needs to make very clear. 
If the boys and girls want to know what God is like, 
they can be given a description of Jesus, and the teacher 
can say, "God is like Jesus." They need to think of 
Jesus as present, not one who lived two thousand years 
ago and hasn't been on earth since. The teachers must 
make them feel that Jesus is with them, that he loves 
them, that he needs them, and that he will use them 
in the best and happiest service of their lives. That 
makes an appeal easy. 

So the teacher's evangelistic approach is through the 
interpreting of a book, the exemplifying of a life, and 
the introducing of a person; that is, through the Bible, 
Christian experience, and God. A class intelligently 
approached through these three avenues in most cases 
can be won to the Christian life. The teacher also can 
do much for the children by visiting their homes and 
enlisting the parents' cooperation in their behalf. 

The Parents' Opportunity 

(4) The parents have responsibilities because they, 
most of all, have the best opportunities to teach religion 
to their children and to bring them up in the Christian 
life. The home too often turns the whole task of the 
religious training of the child over to the Sunday 



i66 EVANGELISM 

school. That is unfair to the school, because it is ex- 
pecting too much of it for the limited time it has with 
the child^ and it is unfair to the child because he has a 
fundamental right to be taught religion at home, and 
because the training of the Sunday school is inadequate 
to meet his religious needs. No parent would think 
that his child had a fair chance at an education who 
only had one hour a week schooling. If the mind 
needs from twenty-five to thirty hours a week for ten 
months in the year, through fifteen or twenty years, for 
training to make it capable of having a fair chance in 
the world for business success, certainly the soul needs 
more than an hour a week through the same period to 
give it a fair chance in the world for character-build- 
ing. Yet parents who want their children to have both 
success and character will see to it that they get the 
best that the schools can give them in secular training, 
and seem to be indifferent to their religious training, 
except such as may be gotten an hour a week in Sunday 
school. If they should fail in life for want of an 
education, all sorts of excuses would be made for them. 
If they should fail morally, great surprise would be ex- 
pressed. Parents would say: "Well, we did out duty 
by them. We sent them to Sunday school. If the 
Sunday school had done its duty, they would not have 
gone wrong." 

It is true if the Sunday school had a better evangelis- 
tic policy and program, a great many more youths and 
maidens would be saved, in spite of what little help 
they get at home. But for parents to say that they did 
their duty to the children in the matter of religion 
when they sent them to Sunday school would be funny 



i 



OPPORTUNITY— RESPONSIBILITY 167 

if it were not so serious. It shows how lightly many 
people hold parenthood. 

One of the reasons why parents are so reticent about 
teaching their children religion is that they have no 
family worship, and it seems a little strange and un- 
natural for them to introduce the subject when there is 
nothing to suggest it. Family worship would give an 
easy and a natural method of approach. To this end 
there not only ought to be family worship in every 
Christian home, but it should be made bright and at- 
tractive to the children, so thay would love religion 
rather than dread it. Family worship has often failed 
of the very purpose it was to serve because it was not 
adapted to the child life of the home. 

Another reason why parents are reticent about re- 
ligion is that some of them came into the church when 
they were children without any training, and they are 
afraid if their children should ask them any questions 
about the spiritual life they could not answer them, and 
they do not like to be put at such a disadvantage. Of- 
ten their children are better educated religiously than 
they are; the children know more about the Bible than 
the parents do, and the latter are afraid they will not 
be able to answer a question of information or to hold 
their own in an argument. 

Still another reason is that parents know their chil- 
dren see them at short range and in all their moods, 
and they feel that their own religious life is not con- 
sistent or good enough to be a model for their children, 
therefore they let the Sunday school look after the 
religious side of child culture. 

In many cases too the parents are not Christians, and 



i68 EVANGELISM 

so can be of no help and often are a hindrance to their 
children becoming Christians. Many times the chil- 
dren are sent to Sunday school because it is a perfectly 
safe place for them, while the parents themselves in- 
dulge in recreations or make or receive calls. So that 
altogether children do not get as much religious en- 
couragement or help in the home as they should, and 
that makes the task of the Sunday school much more 
difficult. 

If the teachers knew that the parents would follow 
up in the home the religious help which they begin to 
give the children in the Sunday school, much more 
would be done. But teachers often fear that the hin- 
drances in the home would more than offset the help 
in the class, so it would be better to let the whole 
matter of evangelism alone, till the children grow up 
and decide the matter for themselves; then it will be 
the opportunity and duty of the pastor and the church, 
and not of the teacher and the Sunday school, to evan- 
gelize them. 

Family Worship 

Now, there are some things that parents, especially 
those who are members of the church, can do to greatly 
help the evangelistic policy of the school : 

I. Have family worship. This may be difficult in 
many cases, owing to the fact that it is almost impossi- 
ble to get all the members of the family together at 
any one time of day. It would be ideal to have family 
worship twice a day, but that might be expecting too 
much of the average parents. But it would be far 
better if they could only have family worship once a 



OPPORTUNITY— RESPONSIBILITY 169 

week, say on Sunday, than not to have it at all. If 
they could not have it on Sunday morning, then try 
Sunday evening, at which time some of the work done 
in the Sunday school could be talked over, and the good 
impression fastened with good resolutions and Chris- 
tian decisions. The teacher occasionally could be in- 
vited to supper and then take part in the family wor- 
ship. That would be especially opportune if some keen 
religious interest had been taken that day in the class 
by the children of that home. 

Family worship can be greatly simplified, and many 
families would find it neither difficult nor even incon- 
venient if the following method were adopted : Make 
it a part of the morning or evening meal, or, better, 
both if possible. It would add only five or eight min- 
utes to the length of the meal, and that would not make 
it irksome. The family would more likely be together 
then than at any other hours of the day, and as a rule, 
there would be less interruption then than at any other 
time. While all are at the table a chapter could be 
read, preferably from the New Testament, as, for the 
most part, it lends itself to devotional reading better 
than the Old Testament does. This could be followed 
by a brief prayer, for when devotions are held every 
day the prayers can afford to be brief. That would 
keep the subject of religion always before the family, 
and any time the parents saw fit they might converse 
with their children about it in a natural and easy way. 
Thus family worship would create an atmosphere in the 
home which would be favorable to religion and would 
ably second any work that the teachers were trying to 
do toward that end in the Sunday school. In the home 



I70 EVANGELISM 

religion can be made so wholesome and natural that 
children will not think that they have to be odd or old- 
fashioned if they become Christians, and that will do 
much toward predisposing them to religion. The home 
is the best place both to teach and to live ''the sweet 
reasonableness'' of religion. 

2. The parents occasionally can visit the Sunday 
school and there find out just what the teachers are 
trying to do for the religious instruction of their chil- 
dren. If parents would do that, two false notions that 
quite widely prevail would be corrected. One is that 
teachers bring undue pressure upon the children to 
make them Christians and thus embarrass them or turn 
them against religion altogether. \A'"hen they saw 
what the teachers were actually doing, how gentle and 
wise they were, they would see that the first impres- 
sion was not well founded. The second wrong impres- 
sion that w^ould be corrected is that the teachers are 
just entertaining their classes and not teaching them 
either the Bible or religion. The one impression was 
that the teachers were too religious ; the other was that 
the teachers were not religious enough. The parents 
would find that both impressions were wrong. If 
either had any truth in it, the best way to bring the 
teachers to a better mind and method would be the fre- 
quent unannounced visits of the parents. In that way 
both parents and teachers would be satisfied. 

It would be a great stimulus to good teaching to have 
the parents take interest enough in the school to visit 
it occasionally and thus show their appreciation for 
what the school was doing in their children's behalf. 
A very close and sympathetic cooperation between the 



OPPORTUNITY— RESPONSIBILITY 171 

parents and teachers would do a great deal toward the 
evangelizing of the children. 

The Sunday School Helping the Home 

Home interest could be greatly helped if the super- 
intendent and teachers visited the homes a little more 
often than they do, or wrote friendly letters when they 
could not call. Of course it would mean a good deal 
of work added to already busy people, but it would be 
well worth while. Parents ought to be more interested 
in the conversion and Christian culture of their own 
children than any teacher or other outside person could 
be, but that does not always seem to be the case, for 
often parents will not even cooperate with the teachers 
in that work. Then if the children go wrong the par- 
ents often blame the Sunday school and say if the 
teachers had done their duty the children would not 
have gone wrong. If the parents do not do all in their 
power to back up what the teachers are trying to do 
it comes with ill grace from them when they lay the 
whole responsibility of their children's wrong doing 
at the feet of the Sunday school teacher. 

The hearty cooperation of the home and Sunday 
school would easily double the Sunday school's evan- 
gelistic efficiency. Parents would be surprised at what 
could be done for the religious life of their children 
if they went about it as reasonably and naturally as 
they dp about any other matter of tlieir welfare and 
culture. 



CHAPTER II 

DECISION DAY 

This is the day that most Sunday schools use as 
the harvest time for the evangehstic work of the year. 
There ought to be several such days in the course of 
the year. There should be at least two such days — 
Christmas and Easter, although these days are seldom 
used as Decision Days. They are given up for the 
most part to entertainments of some sort. But the 
natural religious appeal of these two days is greater 
than of any other two days of the year. Christmas 
time celebrates God's gift of his Son to the world. It 
is the time of giving, and the appeal at that time for 
young people to give God their hearts would be both 
natural and powerful. Eastertime celebrates Christ's 
giving of himself. That is the truest test of a friend- 
ship and the highest expression of Saviourhood. The 
appeal of Easter is the appeal of the cross, but of the 
cross that conquered. The services of Christmas week 
and of Holy Week, both in the church and Sunday 
school, are such that if rightly used they can be of 
great evangelistic value. Many times Decision Day 
is of little value because it has been too hastily gotten 
up, the work not sufficiently planned, and the workers 
not properly organized and trained. 

For Decision Day there should be a general and a 
special preparation. 

172 



DECISION DAY 173 

I. General preparation. If the first Decision Day 
is to be held about Christmas time or on Christmas 
Sunday, the general preparation should begin as early 
as Rally Day, which occurs some time near the end 
of September or the first Sunday in October. On that 
day the evangelistic program of the year and the ideal 
of the school can be announced. Both pupils and 
teachers can be urged to bend all their energies toward 
the realization of the school's ideal, "Every member 
of the school for Christ." That strikes an evangelistic 
note from the first, and the teachers can easily keep 
that note prominent in their teaching right along. Dur- 
ing the early weeks of the fall, every home represented 
in the school should be visited by the pastor, and each 
teacher should visit the homes of his class. It is very 
necessary that the homes should be in harmony with 
this movement, so that there would be no obstructive 
forces at work while the general preparation was going 
on. The session program of the school (not the les- 
son program) is a special order of exercises which 
the superintendent arranges with the aid of pastor, 
and should be planned so as to focus evangelistically 
on Decision Day. Daily readings should be prepared 
for the home. These should have a strong evangelistic 
emphasis. Great examples of heroism, devotion, faith, 
high ideals, etc., should be the themes for home read- 
ings. As Decision Day approaches Christmas time the 
home readings should have to do with God's plan of 
redemption, the coming of the Messiah, God's love for 
the world, and similar topics. 

In those early weeks frequent teacher prayer meet- 
ings should be held. After prayer for the pupils lias 



174 EVANGELISM 

been offered by the teachers, the pastor should give 
talks on the art of soul-winning, showing the teachers 
how^ to present Christ and secure decisions, urging 
them to receive as many decisions for Decision Day as 
possible. It is very important that all the teachers be 
present at those prayer and training meetings. 
Teachers who will not do it may defeat the whole pro- 
gram on Decision Day. 

Whatever literature is to be used on that day ought 
to be carefully thought out and printed so that nothing 
may be lacking on Decision Day. Groups of the most 
tactful older pupils who are consistent Christians and 
have a wholesome influence in their classes and in the 
school should be organized into personal workers' 
bands to win as many of their young friends as they 
can, whether they are members of their classes or not. 
The pastor and superintendent should have a list of all 
the unconverted members of the school. They may get 
the names from the teachers, and these should be made 
special subjects for prayer. 

2. Special preparation. About a month before De- 
cision Day a brief teachers' prayer meeting should be 
held each Sunday after the Sunday school session 
closes. The pastor can preach strong evangelistic ser- 
mons both morning and evening. The prayer meet- 
ing can take the form of an intercession meeting. 
Group prayer meetings in the homes may be held, and 
all the activities of the church converge toward evan- 
gelism. Personal interviews with the pupils who are to 
be won to Christ should be sought. The last ten or 
fifteen minutes of the Sunday school session may occa- 
sionally be devoted to prayer in which teachers and 



DECISION DAY 175 

the older pupils of the school may participate. If some 
of the strong popular young men of the Bible class 
will offer prayer, it will be especially effective. The 
boys of the school keep a close watch on the young 
men, and they are ready to imitate them whenever they 
can. 

Decision Day Program 

On the Sunday before Decision Day the program of 
the day should be completed and thoroughly explained 
to the teachers. There should be no misunderstanding 
of what each one is to do and when and how to do it. 
This is especially important if Decision Cards are to 
be used ; the teachers should know just when and how 
to use them. 

When Decision Day arrives, an hour before the 
session all the Sunday School Board should meet with 
the pastor and the superintendent for final instruction. 
It would almost amount to a rehearsal ; but unless that 
is done, some blunder is likely to hinder the highest 
efficiency of the service. All the detail work of the 
school, such as records, collections, notices, etc., should 
be out of the way before the Decision Day program 
proper begins. Nothing must be left undone which 
will have to be finished after the service is over. Such 
an omission can but detract from the interest of the 
session and take the attention from the main thing that 
is to be done. All the routine work of the school 
should be done before the Decision service begins. 
The teachers are to be in their places promptly and a 
little before their pupils arrive. This should always be 
the case, but especially on this day. If decision cards 



176 EVANGELISM 

are to be used, the teachers should have them in their 
desks, and enough for every member of the class. They 
should not be given out until the pastor who will con- 
duct the service on that day tells them to. Then after 
a bright song service, a Scripture lesson, and a brief, 
pertinent prayer, the pastor, or some one chosen for 
the purpose, will give a fifteen- or twenty-minute ad- 
dress that will be strong and clear, challenging, win- 
some, and free from cant, one that will directly end 
up in an appeal for decision. 

At this point the leader takes up a decision card, 
reads, and explains it. The card should be briefly 
drafted, like the card referred to on page one hundred 
and three. On the one side the simple statement, "I 
have an earnest desire to be a Christian, and am willing 
to take whatever help may be given me." On the other 
side the declaration could be a little stronger : ^T ac- 
cept Jesus Christ as my Saviour, and with his help I 
mean to live a Christian life." On both sides should 
be a space for the name and the address of the signer. 
When the leader makes his appeal and takes the card 
to explain it, the teachers should give a card to every 
member of the class so that no one would be made con- 
spicuous. The pupils look at the card while the leader 
explains it. Then a few minutes are given so that the 
teachers can talk the matter over with their classes. 
Then just before they are asked to sign the cards a 
brief prayer is ofifer to get everybody thoughtful and 
serious, and God's blessing is asked upon what is about 
to be done. Then the pupils who are not professed 
Christians or church members are asked to sign. Then 
after the cards are signed, the pastor should offer a 



DECISION DAY 177 

prayer of consecration that God would set his seal upon 
what was done, and that the signing of the cards carry 
with it the dedication of the lives of all those young 
people to Jesus Chrisr in loving loyalty and willing 
service. Then might be softly sung the hymn begin- 
ning, 

"Take my life, and let it be, 
Consecrated, Lord, to Thee." 

The cards should be made in duplicate, so that the 
pupil might retain one half and give the other to the 
teacher, which he would turn over to the pastor. At 
the close of the service all those who signed cards 
should be called together with their teachers in another 
room, where the pastor could give them further in- 
struction. The use of the card is only an introduction 
for the teacher, pastor, or parent to do personal work 
with the pupil until he comes to a real Christian expe- 
rience adapted to his age and needs. The close of the 
Decision Day is the beginning of personal work with 
the signers. The teachers could have oversight of the 
converts of their own classes. The help of the parents 
should be enlisted in their behalf. The pastor should 
organize them into classes for preparatory member- 
ship as described in Part IV, Chapters I-III. If any 
other form of decision is adopted, as going forward or 
standing, the same general principle of concerted action 
should be observed. 

When the Christmas Decision Day is over, prepara- 
tory work for the Kaster Decision Day should begin. 
The same general and special lines of preparation can be 
followed, of course adapting the message and the appeal 
to the Easter season and spirit. That will keep the 



178 EVANGELISM 

evangelistic emphasis in the Sunday school the whole 
year. Conversions will be taking place right along 
through the year as well as on the Decision Days, and 
it will be regarded as the normal work of the school 
not only to teach the Bible but to win the pupils to 
Christ. 

Now, if the pastor, the superintendent, the teachers, 
and the parents all unite in a definite evangelistic pro- 
gram for the young people of the Sunday school, in- 
stead of sixty per cent or thereabout going out of the 
school unsaved, not ten per cent would; and if that 
were true, the membership of the church would be con- 
siderably more than doubled in a single year. The 
Sunday school as a field of evangelism is white unto 
the harvest. It is to be hoped that the opportunities 
of this field will be more clearly seen and more faith- 
fully used in the future than they have been in the 
past. 

For a fuller discussion of the whole subject of Sun- 
day School Evangelism, see the author's recent book — 
The Sunday School An Evangelistic Opportunity, 
published by The Methodist Book Concern, 150 Fifth 
Avenue, New York City. 



PART IV 

PRACTICAL EVANGELISM CONSERVING 
RESULTS 



CHAPTER I 
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 

Training Young Converts 

The weakest point in modern evangelism is the 
failure to properly care for and train those who have 
been converted. In many places the converts are re- 
ceived into preparatory, and even full membership 
without anything being done for them in a construc- 
tive way either in character-building or training for 
service. They are too often left to themselves, and 
for want of proper training they either lapse and 
drop out of the church altogether or they become nom- 
inal members who are neither happy nor useful. At 
last they become a sort of insulating zone between the 
real spiritual members in the church and the non- 
Christians on the outside. When such a condition 
exists it is difficult to have a revival or to do any very 
successful evangelistic work. 

The man on the outside says that he is as good as 
some of the church members are, and that may be 
true; but he does not always distinguish between the 
real Christian and the nominal church member. But 
it will not do to be too hard on the nominal members ; 
others are as much or more to blame than they are. 
When they were converted, instead of being trained in 
Christian life and service they were left to themselves 
with but little more than a good resolution to lead a 

i8i 



i82 EVANGELISM 

Christian life, and after a while when that good reso- 
lution chilled a little, or a good deal, they had nothing 
that was vital left, so they remained church members 
without a Christian experience. The pastor or the 
church was more to blame than they. After they had 
been members for years it was very hard for them to 
do first works over again. That would be very nat- 
ural, for if they admitted that they were not Christians, 
it would look as though they had been hypocrites all 
these years, and that is not an easy admission to make 
when there was no intention of being hypocritical. 
So there they are — the church is weaker because of 
them, and they themselves are not happy, exemplary, 
or useful. The whole fault lay in somebody's failure 
to train them and help to ground them in a real Chris- 
tian experience. 

The Pastor Should Conduct the Training Class 

It means a good deal of work to train young con- 
verts, and if the pastor does it — and he above all others 
ought to do it — it will add greatly to his work. But 
no work of his life will be more delightful or worth 
while than to take a class of new converts and build 
them up in Christian character and train them for 
service. No class of people that he will ever deal with 
will be as responsive to suggestion, persuasion, or com- 
mand as they will. 

The pastor who fails at this point fails at the most 
vital part of evangelism. If the results of evangelistic 
efforts are not conserved, the work has been a failure. 
For even if a few hold out, in spite of the fact that 
nothing was done for them, those who lapse — and they 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 183 

will be far in excess of the others in the long run — will 
be far harder to reach than they were before. Too 
much stress cannot be laid on conservation work. 

In the old days, when there were class meetings and 
good class leaders, converts were put in their care, and 
received much valuable training because they were put 
into classes with mature Christians and got the benefit 
of their wider experience. But that condition no longer 
exists in many quarters, and some one else better 
trained must do for them, and do it better than 
the old class meeting did. Those were the days of 
short pastorates, and some persons other than the pas- 
tor had to do that work, but now in the long pastorates 
the pastor ought to do this work himself both for 
his own good and for the good of the converts them- 
selves. 

The question now arises. How shall this work be 
done? When the pastor has any considerable number 
of converts, whether from a revival or from personal 
work through continuous evangelism, he should put 
them into a class for training. The night of the week 
best suited to their convenience should be chosen, for 
regularity of attendance is very important. Friday 
night is usually the best night, as it is the freest from 
school duties and most of the converts will be of gram.- 
mer- or high-school age. 

The Training Class Program 

How shall the work begin? What should be at- 
tempted in such a class? The first step in training is 
to teach them what it means to be a Christian. Many 
have a notion that joining the church is all tliat is nee- 



i84 EVANGELISM 

essary; others think that if the questions that are asked 
at their reception are answered in the affirmative, 
the matter is settled; still others think if they do a cer- 
tain set of duties called religious work, they have 
met all the requirements. Now they should be taught 
that none of these things makes them Christians. They 
do and believe these things because they are Christians. 

To be a Christian is to be in right relations to God 
and man, to accept and follow Jesus Christ as personal 
Saviour and Lord, to live a life of love and loyalty 
to him and of unselfish service to men, to forsake sin 
and, by the grace of God freely given, to bring life up 
to its best in all things. As a result of that surrender 
and dedication of themselves to God through Jesus 
Christ they will join the church, believe the doctrines 
and perform the duties required of a Christian. They 
should be taught that religion is not a part of the life, 
much less that it is a mere personal luxury only to be 
enjoyed. It is the whole life at its best, expressing 
itself in a joyful loyalty to God and a willing service 
to man. 

Religion, then, is not a thing to be possessed, but a 
personal relation to be sustained. Men do not get re- 
ligion; they become religious. This personal relation 
to Christ may be illustrated under four general heads, 
namely. Teacher, Master, Friend, Brother. The term 
"Saviour" is taken for granted, for he is already their 
Saviour. They are saved, but now they are to be 
trained in the deeper meaning of the Christian life. A 
blackboard may be used so that the following plan can 
be put upon it and the more easily and clearly ex- 
plained. For convenience and clearness the terms by 



4 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 185 

which Christians are designated in the New Testament 
may be grouped under the four heads, in order that 
the different forms of personal relationship will be the 
more easily understood and applied. Now that Christ 
is their Saviour, they enter his school to learn how to 
live the Christian life. Christ becomes their Teacher, 
and under this head two terms are grouped. 

I. Teacher | Disciple-John 15. 8. 
(Believer — Acts 5. 14. 

I. Disciple, To become a disciple is the natural 
starting point because it means *'a pupil.'' Every mem- 
ber of the class will at once recognize what the relation 
of pupil to teacher means, for they are all pupils under 
teachers. They now start in the school of Christ to 
learn how to be Christians. Their first lesson is on 
how to pray. That is put in a two-fold form, namely 
(i) how not to pray, and (2) how to pray, (a) For 
the first see Matt. 6. 5-8. Here Jesus teaches his dis- 
ciples the forms and the spirit of prayer which they are 
not to follow. This must be fully explained, so that no 
blunders in this important matter will be committed at 
the beginning of their Christian life. As it is always 
easier to learn a thing that it is to unlearn it, nothing 
should be learned at one period of the training that 
would have to be unlearned at any other period. Ac- 
cordingly, they are to be guarded against false or use- 
less methods of prayer. 

(&) The second, or positive, form of prayer is found 
in Luke 11. 1-13. In verses 2-4 Jesus gives a model 
of prayer in what is called the Lord's Prayer. This is 



1 86 EVANGELISM 

a prayer of adoration, confession, and petition. It is 
a brief, simple, reverent, dignified, but comprehensive 
prayer and takes less than half a minute to offer. 
It contains the Christian's social program of the world 
in epitome. In verses 5-8 Jesus gives an illustra- 
tion of a prayer of intercession, where the man at mid- 
night sought help of one friend in behalf of another. 
This is a very important form of prayer and can be 
made attractive to young converts, for much was done 
for them by the prayers of others. Perhaps they were 
led to Christ through the prayers of intercession of- 
fered in their behalf by parents, pastor, or friends. 
Intercession is a very noble and unselfish form of 
prayer and should be cultivated far more than it is. 

In verses 9 and 10 Jesus teaches the assurance of 
prayer. Prayers offered in the right spirit and for 
worthy things will be answered, if not in the way that 
they might be expected to be answered, yet in a better 
way, as God pleases, A very important thing to teach 
at this point is that there is as much love in God's 
answer "No" as there is in his answer ''Yes." A 
prayer that is not answered in our way is not always or 
often an unanswered prayer. Examples where God 
said ''No" with all the love of his nature are in Matt. 
26. 39-44 and 2 Cor. 12. 8-10. The greatest achieve- 
ment in the religious life is to be able to say "Yes" to 
all of God's answers to prayer, whether they come 
as his "Yes" or "No." 

In verses 11 and 12 Jesus teaches the naturalness of 
prayer, and shows how much more wise and good God 
as Father is than earthly fathers are. He shows that 
if earthly parents, out of their limited resources, are 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 187 

willing to supply the needs of their children and will 
not mock them by giving them hurtful things, God, 
who is perfect and unlimited in his resources, will do 
far better things for his children. In verse 13 he shows 
God's willingness to give the Holy Spirit to those who 
ask him. 

Another lesson in the school of prayer is found in 
John 17, this being the Lord's Prayer. Here we have 
the example of Jesus himself at prayer. In this the 
process and scope of prayer are seen. In verses 1-5 
he prays for himself. That is where all prayer should 
begin — getting oneself in harmony with the will of 
God. Many prayers fail because those who offer them 
are not in a right temper to pray, nor in harm.ony with 
God or men. Prayer is to begin with self. In verses 
6-20 he offers a prayer of intercession for his disciples, 
that is, his friends. That is the natural order in the 
widening scope of prayer. In verses 21-26 he prays 
for the world, for all that would believe on him through 
the preaching of the gospel. That is the true climax 
of prayer, to be world wide in its scope and sympathy. 
This, then, is the first lesson learned in the school of 
Christ. It is very important that at the outset of the 
Christian life the habit of intelligent prayer be estab- 
lished. The young Christian who begins his Christian 
life with the habit of prayer will not be apt to go 
astray. This section on prayer should be carefully and 
patiently taught till the pastor is sure that every mem- 
ber of the class understands it. The second lesson in 
the school of Christ is to learn what the will of God is. 
That brings the class at once to a study of the Bible, 
not for devotions alone but also for a practical pro- 



i88 EVANGELISM 

gram of Christian duty. The will of God is to be 
known through prayer and the study of the Bible. 
Prayer and Bible study are fundamental to the building 
of Christian character, and the sooner that young con- 
verts are introduced to these important matters the 
better, and this method starts with these fundamentals. 

The following are suggestive passages on the will 
of God and may be fully explained by the pastor and 
applied to the various forms of duty as they arise: 
John 2. 17; 4. 34; 6. 40; 7. 17; 8. 29; 9. 31. Matt. 7. 
21-24; 18. 17. Mark 3. 35. Acts 5. 29. Rom. 12. 
I, 2. I Cor. Chapters 12 and 14. i Pet. 4. i, 2. i 
Tim., Titus, and Heb. 10. 7. So much for the pupil. 

2. Believer. The relation is still between pupil and 
teacher. Here the pupil believes the teacher and the 
teaching the same as in the school. Little progress 
will be made by a pupil unless he has confidence in his 
teacher and in the truth of the thing taught. But 
here believing takes a very practical form. It leads 
to faith. 

Faith in the Christian sense is more than intellectual 
assent. It means the movement of our whole per- 
sonality up to Christ, until we become one willed with 
him. It means confidence in, love for, and obedience 
to a Person, and that person is Christ. It is the assent 
of the intellect, the devotion of the heart, and the com- 
mitment of the will. It is the giving of oneself in 
utter devotion to Christ. That is what the believer 
does. Christ is the Teacher from whom he is to learn 
and in whom he is to believe. 

For the importance of believing see the following 
passages, which are to be explained and emphasized: 



* 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 189 

Matt. 8. 13; 9. 28. Mark. 9. 23; 11. 22-24. Luke 8. 
59. John 5. 25; 6. 47. Acts 13. 39. 

II. MASTERi^°"^^:^'^P^-5-^- 

(Servant, i. Cor. 7. 2,2. 

Having been to school and learned from the Great 
Teacher the two important lessons of prayer and the 
will of God, the Teacher now becomes Master, and 
life begins to take on practical aspects, so that the 
pupils and believers now become followers and ser- 
vants. But personal relations are still maintained. 

I. Follower, It is a simple thing to say to new 
converts, "Now you must follow Christ," but it is not 
so simple to make them see what following Christ 
means. "Follow the Leader" is a game which boys 
easily understand and can readily apply. They love the 
leader who has the courage to lead them over difficult 
ways. He is a constant challenge to their courage. 
They can easily transfer that principle of courage- 
ous following to the Christian life. So, too, anyone 
who studies art or music will know what following a 
master means. To follow a master not only means to 
imitate his example but to catch his spirit. The fol- 
lower needs to have sagacity and sympathy like 
Christ's. There must be that broad generosity and 
spirit of unselfishness in all that is done in order that 
Christ in a sense will be reproduced in the lives of his 
followers. 

But following Christ has a very practical bearing. It 
is the regulative principle for all conduct. Many con- 
scientious young people are perplexed about the moral 



I90 EVANGELISM 

quality of certain courses of conduct and go to their 
pastor with the questions: "What harm is there in 
this V or, "What is wrong about that ?" There is very 
Httle use in arguing these things with them, for the 
viewpoint of the pastor and the young people might be 
so different that no conclusion could be reached. The 
pastor might silence the objections of the young people 
and vanquish them in argument without convincing 
them. They will say : "We think we can take Christ 
with us here or there. We in no way want to betray 
Christ, nor be disloyal to him. Why can't we take him 
with us?'' That may be very sincerely said. What 
is the pastor to answer them? He is just to apply the 
rule of following Christ. Jesus put the law of disciple-' 
ship into two words : "Follow me" (Matt. 9. 9). 

These young Christians must be shown what older 
Christians ought not to forget, that no one can take 
Christ anywhere. If he is taken, he does not lead, but 
follows. He says, "Follow me," not "Take me." It 
is where he leads that they may go. If in their deepest 
sincerity, and with all the light on the subject that they 
can get, they honestly believe that Christ is leading 
them, not permitting or ignoring what they do, but 
leading them, then that course of conduct is right for 
them. Conduct, then, falls back on their own con- 
science under this rule of Christ, "Follow me," and is 
no longer a matter of a pastor's judgment or prejudice, 
permission or refusal. It is a matter between the in- 
dividual's conscience and Christ. That is the way that 
all moral problems are to be settled, and the sooner 
our young Christians learn it, the sooner the church 
will be free from inconsistent living and confused be- 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 191 

Heving. If they have to depend upon the varying 
standards and opinions of men, they will never be 
settled in character, nor will they ever have a satis- 
factory and convincing rule of conduct. Christ must 
be their final authority, and when they are thoroughly 
grounded in the Bible and brought into a loving loyalty 
to Jesus Christ, they will have no difficulty on the rules 
of conduct. Here the pastor can be an invaluable 
guide to them. 

Jesus tells us in John 7. 17 how to know the way and 
will of God. Some passages might be cited here, to 
show what following Christ involves : ( i ) See Matt. 
22, 37-39, Love; (2) 19. 29-23, Obedience; (3) Luke 
18. 28, Forgiveness; (4) Luke 21. 19, Sacrifice; (5) 
Matt. 5. 48, Character; (6) Matt. 28. 18-29, Service. 
It can thus be seen that following Christ is a very posi- 
tive and practical rule of conduct. 

2. Servant. Here the law of cooperation with 
Christ can be emphasized. Christ illustrates this life 
of interdependence by the parable of the vine, in John 
15. A life of fruit-bearing may seem a very indefinite 
thing to young people. What is meant by fruit-bear- 
ing? In the parable of the vine it is doing something 
for somebody else. The only part of the vine that is 
not for itself is the fruit; that is always for some one 
else. Point out here the difference between the fruit 
of the vine in John 15 and the fruits of the Spirit in 
Gal. 5. The fruits of the Spirit in Gal. 5 are the graces 
of Christian character, and therefore are for oneself. 
The fruits of the vine, on the other hand, are service, 
and therefore for some one else; that is, the fruit of 
the vine is the fruits of the Spirit issuing in action for 



192 EVANGELISM 

others. In a word, the fruit of the Spirit is character 
and the fruit of the vine is service. 

Another thing that should be made clear to these 
young people is that they need not engage in a dif- 
ferent set of duties because they are Christians; it 
may be they cannot. They are to do the same old duties 
as they did before, only now they do them with a new 
motive. They do them now for Jesus' sake ; that gives 
them a new moral value. Duties are sacred, and all 
work that is duty if done with right motive can be 
called religious work. All of a real Christian's work 
is religious work. If this can be made clear at the 
outset of the Christian life, it will save the young 
Christian much confusion and make him feel that the 
Christian life is not some mystic thing up in the clouds, 
but a real, wholesome, and useful life lived in the will 
of God right here in the earth to-day. Religious work 
is work religiously done. A man's religion is not what 
he has but what he is. He is a Christian all the time 
or not at all, therefore whatever he does as a Chris- 
tian is religious work. The religious element is not 
in the thing but in the man. Preaching a sermon, 
teaching a Sunday school class, leading a prayer meet- 
ing, or even praying may be as secular as digging a 
ditch, carrying a hod, or plowing a field. It is the 
motive that determines the moral value of an act. 
Whatever is done for Jesus' sake is truly religious 
work. The servant of Christ is to do all duties so as to 
please him; that in the highest sense is Christian 
living. 

Many young people think that if they are to do 
Christian work, they must go into the ministry, or to 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 193 

the foreign field as missionaries, or something of that 
sort. These things are good to do, but they must be 
taught that any work done in Jesus's name and for 
the extension of his kingdom in the world is Christian 
service. It is very important that some young men 
should see not only the religious value of law or medi- 
cine or teaching or making money, but also the oppor- 
tunity through these different avenues of service of 
getting the will of God done in the earth. All legiti- 
mate and necessary work is to be capitalized for God. 
Young people are to be trained in usefulness as well 
as in piety; indeed, that is poor piety which is not 
useful. 

The servant is to cooperate with Christ to get the 
will of God done in all human relations and activities. 
Accordingly, Christians must engage in all legitimate 
and necessary forms of work, and an evangelism that 
does not lead to that kind of practical training will not 
do much for the church or for the world. See the 
following passages that relate to service: Matt. 22, 
1-14. Luke 14. 16-23. Matt. 10. 1-16; 28. 18-20. 
Acts I. 7, 8. In these days, when life service is stressed 
so much, it is well to get young converts committed to 
some lifework adapted to their ability and ambition, 
some work that is really worth while. In this class is 
the best place to do it. It is not a matter to be settled 
at a convention under the inspiration of a stirring ad- 
dress, but to calmly face it for several weeks, in which 
time one can get his bearings and intelligently decide 
under the careful guidance of a wise and sympathetic 
leader, who can follow up and help confirm the de- 
cision with such practical counsel as may be neces- 



194 EVANGELISM 

sary. That makes religion a very practical and work- 
able thing, and not a mere emotion or a sentimental 
ideal of hazy indefiniteness. 

--T-r T- i Friend, John 15. 14-15. 

III. Friend i ^ • . t> ^ ^ ^ 

(Samt, Rom. i. 7. 

I. Friend. The personal relation is still main- 
tained, but it becomes a closer and more affectionate 
relation. To be on terms of friendship with Jesus 
Christ is an unspeakably great honor, but it also in- 
volves great responsibilities. Friendship expresses, or 
at least it implies, a higher confidence and a finer fel- 
lowship than servanthood. The friendship of Jesus is 
clearly shown in Rom. 5. 6-10 and John 15. 13; and 
our friendship is shown for him in John 15. 14. The 
test of it is obedience. The test of Christ's friendship 
for man was sacrifice. All the force and beauty of 
friendship can be used by the leader to illustrate the 
friendship between the Christian and Christ. Young 
people very strongly resent anything that looks like 
being untrue to a friend. To them it is cowardly and 
ought to be despised. They are at the friendship- 
forming age and would do almost anything, however 
hard or painful, for a friend. Now, if Jesus is set 
forth as their greatest and best Friend, and as such he 
desires and deserves their truest loyalty and highest 
devotion, a great impression can be made on them. 
Many strong illustrations could be found of pals in the 
world war who would die for one another. This 
greatest of all friends died for them, and the plea of 
fidelity to him almost makes itself. Friendship should 



THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 195 

be capitalized for Christ. There is hardly any more 
compelling subject than friendship, that can be brought 
to young people. 

2. Saint, This term is apt to be greatly misunder- 
stood. The word is associated with gray hairs and 
goodness. To most people, and especially young peo- 
ple, it never occurs that a young person could be a 
saint. But sainthood has nothing to do with years. 
It has to do with consecration. It is as possible to be 
a saint at sixteen as it is at eighty, and a good deal 
better for the individual, the church, and the world. 
It sounds strange to call a person of sixteen or eighteen 
a saint, but there is no reason why he should not be. 
A saint is a person wholly devoted to the will of God; 
that is, a completely consecrated person. It might not 
be well to apply to young people a term that would be 
misunderstood by other people, but the point is that 
these young people should understand that they do not 
have to be old before they can be thoroughly good. 
Goodness does not wait on age. Life should be lived 
at its best all the time. Sainthood, holiness, sanctifica- 
tion are not for any select few, but for all Christians. 
Entire sanctification is the complete setting apart of 
one*s life to the service of Christ. That is what Paul 
means in i Thess. 5. 23. Practically the same thought 
is also in i Cor. 5. 19, 20 and 10. 31; 2 Cor. 5. 17; 
6. 14-18; 7. I, 2. See also i Pet. i. 13-23. 

What has been called the higher life, which so many 
people are afraid of and think impossible, should be 
shown to these young Christians to be as normal and 
possible to the soul as perfect health is to the body. 
No one would think it strange for young people to 



196 EVANGELISM 

have robust bodies and perfect health; neither should 
they think it strange if these young people should have 
a robust and healthy soul life. Holiness is soul health. 
It should be coveted as much as bodily health, and 
when the laws of the soul are obeyed as the laws of the 
body are, they may have holiness as a normal experi- 
ence. One-willed with Christ is both holiness and 
sainthood. 

r Brethren, Matt. 23. 8. 
.IV. Brother K Children, John 1. 12; Rom. 8. 14-17 

( Christian, Acts 11. 26 

We come now to the closest relation of all. We 
started as pupils going to school, then became be- 
lievers, then followers, then servants, then friends, then 
saints, and now have become members of the family of 
God under the names ^'brethren" and ''children." It 
w^ill not be difficult to explain the privileges, protec- 
tions, benefits, and responsibilities of family life. 
These young Christians easily can see that it is as 
much of an obligation to protect the family name and 
honor of God as it is to protect their own family name 
and honor. This gives a good opportunity to train 
them in fidelity and devotion to the church, which is 
God's hom.e. All that pertains to the church, the Sab- 
bath, the Bible, the service should be reverently used. 
Here it is well to teach them that they came into the 
family of God by a spiritual birth just as they did into 
their own family by natural birth. So the pastor needs 
to explain John 3. 3-6. See also i John 3. 2. They 
need to realize that now^ they belong to a royal family. 
Jesus is King. He is more — he is Saviour. He is 






THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 197 

more — he is Brother. That gives a new meaning to 
''Our Father, who art in heaven" ; praying that prayer 
is speaking in terms of family relation. 

All the above relations are involved in the term 
''Christian." By this time these young people begin 
to see how much more it means to be a Christian than 
to be a church member. It is a great thing to be a 
Christian; no life is so dignified, sacred, manifold, use- 
ful, and happy as the Christian Hfe; and young people 
ought to be made to see that as early as possible, and 
they would then understand that it is a great principle 
to live by rather than a sort of security to die by. If 
young Christians are grounded in these fundamentals 
at the beginning of their religious life, the danger of 
falling away will be almost negligible. They need to 
be built into the church, where they can grow and 
work while this holy enthusiasm and the high ideals of 
youth are at their best. Whatever pastor takes a class 
of young converts through several weeks or months of 
such training will have one of the richest experiences 
of his life. 



CHAPTER II 

THE DOCTRINAL BASIS 

The second step in the training should be to give 
these young Christians a doctrinal basis for their re- 
ligious experience to insure its order and stability. But 
that doctrinal basis must be biblical. It would be use- 
less at this early stage of their training to do more 
than just direct their attention to the fact that there 
are certain fundamental doctrines that are accepted by 
Christian people with which they should be familiar 
and to which they should give their intelligent consent 
when they come members of the church. Any elab- 
orate teaching in systematic theology in this class 
would not be necessary, as they would not be prepared 
either intellectually or religiously for such a course. 
The training must neither be too elementary nor too 
advanced, as courses for preparatory members some- 
times are, but adapted as nearly to the capacity of the 
age and ability of the class as if it were a class in day 
school. So here no formulated doctrines will be set 
forth, but only a mere statement of some of the more 
fundamental doctrines and some of the great passages 
of Scripture out of which they spring, the idea being 
to direct the attention of these young people to a study 
of the Bible rather than to any system of theology. 
The doctrines may be discussed very simply, so as to 
acquaint the class with terms which are so often used 
in the pulpit and elsewhere, without any clear explana- 

198 



THE DOCTRINAL BASIS 199 

tion. The only attempt here will be to show how the 
Bible deals with those great truths which are put into 
doctrinal form by the church. 

The following discussion deals only with seed 
thoughts and suggestions, just an introduction to a 
more complete study later on which might be conducted 
in an adult Bible class or some such organization. 

I. The Doctrine of Sin 

It is not necessary here to deal with any theory of 
the origin of sin. It is necessary, however, to deal 
with the fact of sin, its subtleties, disabilities, and dan- 
gers. The battle royal of life is with sin. It is as 
universal as man. It begins its siege of and assault 
on life very early. It haunts and tempts man until 
death. It dims the vision of God in the soul. It under- 
mines moral health, it lowers ideals, weakens princi- 
ples, vitiates tastes, silences prayer, closes the Bible, 
destroys the capacity for life's best things, breaks 
friendship, chills enthusiasm, turns love into hate, bru- 
talizes strength, defeats life's best endeavor, blasts 
hope, wrecks one's future, makes life intolerable and 
death terrible. Sin, when it has done its awful work, 
brings forth a death which is separation from God and 
the wreck of the soul. To young people sin does not 
seem very awful, because few of them have noticed 
its finished work, and most of them fail to reckon with 
sin's power, so they think that they can sin a little and 
be none the worse for it. Indeed, some good young 
people think that the temporary indulgence of some 
forms of sin adds spice to life and makes them the 
more interesting. They are afraid to be thought pru- 



200 EVANGELISM 

dish, so they are apt to take chances, or, in other words, 
to flirt with sin. They do not understand its subtlety 
or power. In their early experience they need to be 
informed of the danger of having anything to do with 
sin. Instead of seeing how near they can come to sin 
and escape its consequences, they ought, rather, to see 
how far they can keep from it. 

Sin showed itself in all its naked horror when it had 
Its way, when it lynched Jesus. To put holiness and 
perfect and unselfish love to the cross shows that unre- 
strained sin scruples at nothing. Young people need 
to see that sin is all of a piece. Any sin may lead to 
all sin. Sin is the black shadow that falls, not only 
across the whole Bible but also across the history of the 
race. Wars, pestilences, famines, crimes, and miser- 
ies follow in its train. These young people are to be 
taught to have a horror of sin and to avoid with firm 
resolution all its forms and defilements. They need to 
be taught how subtle and plausible temptation is, yet 
how dangerous. The law of temptation is clearly set 
forth by James in the first chapter. Seeing, desiring, 
taking is the order of progress in temptation; that is, 
the whole personality is involved — the intellect, the 
emotions, and the will. That chapter wall bear a care- 
ful study with great profit. The principle could be 
thus stated : "I saw, I coveted, I took.'' The tempta- 
tion of Christ in the wilderness involved the same 
principle. See Matt. 4. i-ii; Luke 4. 2-13. The 
temptation in the garden. Gen. 3, took the same form; 
so also in the case of Achan, Joshua 7. 20, 28. See the 
same thing in the temptation of David, 2 ; Sam. 11. 2-4. 
Temptation is dangerous to the unwary because it 



THE DOCTRINAL BASIS 201 

seems so plausible, so natural and right that many 
people yield before they realize its danger, and do so 
with no intention of sinning. 

The consequences of sin are hidden under the 
glamour of temptation. ''Sin, when it is finished up 
bringeth forth death'' (James i. 15). Paul' says that 
the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6. 23), and in i Cor. 
15. 56 he says that the sting of death is sin. Moral 
death passed upon man because of sin. Death was 
the penalty of Achan's sin. Indeed, the whole trend 
of Scripture teaching is that sin brings death, the 
only real death, which is separation from God. That 
is both death and hell. 

The refuge for the tempted is found in i Cor. 10. 
13. Heb. 4. 14-16. Heb. 2. 17, 18; also 6. 17-20. 
In Isa. I, Micah 6, Amos 5, Mai. 3, and Rev. 3. 17, 
18, sin puts itself forth under the forms of piety; but 
in Rom. i. 18-32, 3. 18-23, and Gal. 5. 19-22 sin is 
shown in all its hideous nakedness and deforming 
power. 

The exposition of these various passages and an 
explanation of the law of temptation will safeguard 
these young people against the dangers to which they 
are often and easily exposed. 

The distinction between sin and sins needs to be 
made clear, or there will likely be much confusion 
which may lead to grave errors. Men are fairly well 
agreed as to what sins are — such as falsehood, theft, 
profanity, lust, dishonesty, drunkenness, murder, etc. 
There will be little difference of opinion here, and if a 
person is not guilty of any of these and other sins 
like them, he thinks that he is not a sinner. But what 



202 EVANGELISM 

makes a man a sinner is something that Hes back of 
these things and gives rise to them. Sin is not an 
act but an attitude, and that attitude leads to all the 
acts which men call sins. There is little use trying 
to correct the acts as long as the attitude remains un- 
changed. 

What is that attitude? It is an attitude of rebellion 
to the rule of God in the soul, to the kingship of Jesus 
Christ in the life. That rebellion may be passive or 
active; that is, it may ignore God or defy him. The 
passive may be more or less unconscious; that is, it 
may not be deliberate or intentional, but it none the less 
leaves God out of the life by feeling no need of him or 
giving no place to him. The other attitude is one of 
hostility, where the rights of God are not recognized 
and the laws of God are defied. That type of sinner 
is called the ungodly. The thing to be borne in mind is 
that all who exclude God from the life, or those who 
fail to take him into the life, are sinners in the bibHcal 
sense. So that a person may be very circumspect in 
the sight of men and 3^et be a sinner in the sight of God. 
That needs to be made very clear, or else some will rest 
in their good works to men and neglect their right rela- 
tion to God. For suggestive passages on failure of 
good works alone to save see Matt. 7. 21-23 ; Eph. 2. 8, 
9; Rom. 3. 20. In a word, sin is a wrong relation to 
God, and from that wrong relation all the sins against 
God and man proceed. 

2. The Doctrine of Repentance 

Most people have an erroneous notion of just what 
is involved in repentance. That is especially true of 



THE DOCTRINAL BASIS 203 

young people. They think that being sorry for doing 
a wrong thing is all that there is to repentance. That 
may mean much or little according to what is meant 
by being sorry. Some are sorry not because of the 
thing done but because of the unhappy outcome of it. 
That was the repentance of Judas, as we shall see 
below. The old definition of repentance, that it is a 
godly sorrow for sin, is not adequate unless the godly 
sorrow is made radical and inclusive enough to cover 
much more than is ordinarily included in the word 
"sorrow." To most people repentance is a revulsion of 
feeling; but unless it goes deeper than that it will have 
no regenerative force. 

Forgiveness is granted on the ground of repentance. 
But forgiveness does not necessarily follow a revulsion 
of feeling if that is all there is to it. Judas had a 
revulsion of feeling great enough to drive him to sui- 
cide, but there is nothing in the New Testament to 
show that he was forgiven. No matter what we may 
think took place in the other world, the record is silent 
on any forgiveness in this world, and it is not safe to 
presume on the guesses of what might take place in 
another world. 

There are two words in the New Testament trans- 
lated "repent." One means a revulsion of feeling; it 
means to be sorry or to rue it. That is the word used 
where Judas "repented himself" (see Matt. 2y, 3). He 
rued it, but he did not go to the person he injured to 
make things right, and so his revulsion of feeling 
counted for nothing. The other word goes far deeper 
and means a change of mind, carrying with it a right- 
about-face in the life. It is the word which Jesus used 



204 EVANGELISM 

in Matt. 4. 17 and 12. 41 ; Luke 13. 3» 5; i5- 7; i?- 3; 
and is used in Acts 2. 38; 8. 22; and in Rev. 2. 5; 3. 
3; 16. 9. The change which these passages presup- 
pose is far more radical than change of feeling alone. 
It means a complete change in the whole life. 

One of the dangers of the high-pressure revivals is 
that the conversions which occur under them will be 
too much emotional and too little rational and voli- 
tional. When they are, they are not apt to be very 
stable or vigorous. A conversion is of little moment 
that does not change the whole character. Conversion 
is to give the life a new quality, a new value, a new 
motive, and a new direction. We have seen that sin is a 
wrong attitude toward God. Now, no matter how great 
the revulsion of feeling may be, if that wrong attitude is 
not changed into a right attitude by a complete change 
of mind and will, no forgiveness nor moral reconstruc- 
tion can issue on that kind of a repentance; in other 
words, God will not accept the repentance of any sin 
that a man does not intend to give up. True repentance, 
by changing the mind and attitude, turns the life around 
from indifference or hostility to God to a loving obe- 
dience and loyalty to him. That is the human side of 
conversion ; indeed, it is conversion which is turning 
around. Then God meets that turned life with his 
forgiveness and grace; that is the divine side of con- 
version. So that God and man cooperate in the work 
of conversion. The human side, or the turning around, 
is called conversion, and the divine side, which is the 
recreation into spiritual excellence, is called regenera- 
tion. It is important to explain very carefully all that 
is involved in repentance, for some of the members of 



THE DOCTRINAL BASIS 205 

the class that are being taught may fall away under 
provocation or through indifference ; and if they should 
be so unfortunate, they ought to know the way back. 
Some may be held to what they think is conversion 
only by the power of a good resolution because they 
did not understand repentance, and their real conver- 
sion under better light may take place in the class. 
Every point in the process of salvation is to be made 
as clear as possible, so that no one will base his Chris- 
tian life on a false premise. Therefore plenty of time 
is to be taken in the training class. It is far better to 
keep them in training for two or three years than to re- 
ceive them into full membership ill informed or badly 
grounded in the Christian faith and experience. 

3. The Doctrine of Redemption 

The difference between redemption and salvation 
needs to be made clear, so that the two things will not 
be confused in their minds. All men are redeemed, 
but all men are not saved. Redemption is the provision 
which God makes for man whether man cooperates or 
not. Redemption is wholly a work of God. Salva- 
tion is redemption appropriated by man in cooperation 
with God. Salvation is a work of God and man to- 
gether. 

It would be an interesting study to trace the rising 
and expanding idea of redemption from the Exodus 
down to the time of Christ. A brief outline could be 
made of the main features in the development of the 
redemptive idea, so that the class could see at a glance 
the Old Testament preparation for the work of Clirist. 



2o6 EVANGELISM 

That would require an outline study of Exodus, Levit- 
icus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Amos, Micah, 
Hosea, Joel, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. All that would be 
necessary for beginners would be to select the leading 
points of the redemptive teaching of these books and 
arrange them so that immature Bible students could 
see their bearing on the work of Christ. 

4. The Doctrine of Salvation 

The key chapter to be studied here is John 3. Christ 
calls salvation the birth from above, but he makes it 
clear that what he means is a Hfe lived according to 
the will of God, and that he had come to live and die, 
to give man the spiritual power to live such a life. 
He came to give man a clean heart, a strong will, a 
noble love, a right motive, a mastery over sin, and a 
right relation to God and man. 

Some suggestive passages to study with the class 
and interpret to them on the subject of salvation are: 
Isa. 55- 7-9; 44. 22; 52. 3. Psa. 34. 22; 41; 49. 15; 
130. 7, 8. Luke I. 68; 24. 21. John 3. 1-22. Rom. 
Chapters 7, 8; Gal. 3. 13. Eph. 4. 30. Col. i. 14. Heb. 
7. 25; 9. 12. Titus 2. 14. I Pet. I. 18. These could be 
assigned to the class to look up and study and report on. 
Then their true interpretations could be given. This 
study could be related back to the first section of the 
study on the meaning of the Christian life. The saved 
person is the Christian. Every man is a redeemed 
man, but the man who has translated God's provision 
of redemption for him into personal experience is a 
Christian. 



THE DOCTRINAL BASIS 207 

5. Justification 

Justification and righteousness are so nearly inter- 
changeable terms in the New Testament that no dis- 
tinction between them need be pointed out. Sin, as 
we have pointed out, was man's wrong relation to God, 
and justification rights that wrong relation. It is the 
declaration that a right relation between God and man 
has been established. Man has laid down his arms 
and ceased to be at war with the will of God. God 
now makes terms of peace with him. That peace was 
made through Christ, so Christ becomes man's ''Right- 
eouser." Man is brought to Christ's standing before 
God. This can be made clear by way of illustration. 
When nations that have been at war enter into peace 
relations, then all international dealings, political and 
commercial, are reestablished as though nothing had 
happened; that is, right international relations have 
been restored; and so it is in justification — right rela- 
tions between God and man are restored, and every- 
thing now proceeds on a peace basis. 

Justification is a different way of putting conversion. 
Both, fundamentally, mean the same thing — getting 
into right relations to God by getting rid of sin, and 
entering upon a program of service, by which the will 
of God is done in the life. Conversion, regeneration, 
justification, sanctification have so often been taught as 
if they were so many distinct and separate acts or ex- 
periences that many people have been greatly confused 
by the use of the terms. Christian experience is a 
unit, and not a set of water-tight compartment experi- 
ences, which have little to do witli one another. All of 



2o8 EVANGELISM 

those terms only express different aspects of the one 
experience, and may and ought to exist simultane- 
ously in the Christian life from the beginning. The 
life that is in right relation to God and to man, that 
has Christ's standing before God, and has open access 
to God through Christ, and therefore has peace with 
God and happiness in God, is a complete Christian 
life; and that is the justified life according to Paul 
(see Rom. 5), It will be very profitable to fully ex- 
pound that chapter on the nature, privileges, and bene- 
fits of justification. 

6. Faith 

That was explained above as confidence in, love for, 
and obedience to, a Person, and that person Christ. It 
is very practical and simple. It is not a mysterious 
something that takes possession of them as they come 
into the experience of the Christian faith. They need 
to see that if they believed, loved, and obeyed Christ 
as they do their mothers, they would be nearly ideal 
Christians. Christian faith is the whole personality 
going out to Christ in trust, love, and obedience. It 
thus becomes a practical rule of conduct that can be 
applied to all things all the time. It is a very workable 
thing. Christ is absolutely dependable. He never 
makes a mistake; he is always worthy of the most 
devoted love and most unquestioning obedience. When 
that is made clear faith will come down out of the 
clouds, where it is to most young people, and become 
a very simple and concrete rule of practice. A good 
set of passages for the study of faith in its different 
aspects is: Matt. 15. 28; 17. 20, 21. Mark i. 15; 9. 



THE DOCTRINAL BASIS 209 

2Z\ 16. 16. Luke 7. 9. John 3. 36; 5. 24; 6. 47. 
Acts 26. 18. Rom. I. 17; 3. 21, 22; 4. 1-5; 5. 1-5. 
Eph. 2. 18. Heb. 11. James 2. 21-23. 

The home, business, society, and civilization rest 
on men's confidence in one another. If they had the 
same confidence in the infalHble God that they do in 
falHble men, and acted upon it, the Kingdom of God 
would be established in the earth. Religious faith 
must be explained to these young Christians in terms of 
common confidence, that they may get hold of it and 
practice it. 

7. SONSHIP 

This takes us back to the last section of the first step 
in the training, to where the pupil is received into the 
family, and also to the discussion of salvation, which 
Christ calls the birth from above. The things to be 
stressed are the privileges and responsibilities of mem- 
bership in the family of God. To these young people, 
the church will best express the idea of the household 
of God on the earth. Appropriate passages for this 
discussion and for class study are: Matt. 5. 9-45; 13. 
38-43. Luke 16. 8. John 3. 3, 8; 8. 36; 12. 36. Rom. 
6. 17, 18, 22; 8. 16-18, 21. I Cor. 2. II, 12; 3. 21-23. 
Gal. 3. 26; 4. 5 ; 6. 13. Eph. 5. i, 8. Phil. 2. 15. Col. 
2. 2. I Thess. 5. 5. Heb. 6. 11 ; 10. 22. James i. 18, 
25. I Pet. 2. 16. I John I. 1-4; 3. 2, 3. 

8. The Doctrine of Holiness 

There is no doctrine of the Christian faith that has 
been so perverted by well-meaning but for the most 
part ill-informed people as this. It has been made so 



2IO EVANGELISM 

obnoxious and some of its professors have been so 
intolerant that few people want to be known as holy 
people. So the church has lost immeasurably both in 
its joy and power because its highest spiritual state has 
not been sought or attained by the majority of its mem- 
bers. Holiness must be rescued from this misunder- 
standing and given the place to which it, as the climax 
of Christian character, is entitled. It can be set forth 
in outline, and the pastor can make the steps clear as 
he goes along. If religious experience were expressed 
in terms of education, then to discount holiness would 
be like discounting the higher education and being con- 
tent with the training of the grammar school or at 
most the high school. Holiness to the spiritual life 
is what a university education is to the intellectual life, 
what perfect health is to the physical life : it is the 
highest culture and health of the soul. That should be 
made very plain to the young people who are to be the 
church of to-morrow. They should not be robbed of 
the highest Christian excellence because of the extrava- 
gance of a few people. 

Holiness is not a thing to get at a meeting as one 
might get an article at a store. It is not a detached 
thing which one might easily get and just as easily lose. 
It is not an obtainment but an attainment. We do not 
get holiness; we become holy. Holiness may be lost 
just as health may be, and in very much the same way 
— by carelessness, neglect, or sin. 

When the soul is well cared for as to its food and 
exercise, holiness will be as natural and inevitable as 
health is when the body is well cared for as to its food 
and exercise. Holiness, therefore, instead of being 



THE DOCTRINAL BASIS 21 t 

shunned should be most earnestly sought after, and it 
will be when it is presented in all its attractiveness and 
power. This is the pastor's privilege and task in his 
training class. 

What now are the steps by which the pastor is to 
make clear the doctrine or the experience of holiness? 

I. The Preparation for Holiness 

This is the preparation or the attitude of mind that 
will make the experience of holiness either welcome or 
possible; and it is set forth in i Pet. i. 13-17. (i) 
Get ready. ''Gird up/' verse 13. (2) Be sober, that 
is, be well poised or steady, verse 13. (3) Be hopeful 
to the end, verse 13. In verse 14, two things are to be 
noticed, (a) Obedience, (b) Consistency. See for 
a similar thought Rom. 12. 2. In verse 17, Rever- 
ence. These then represent the attitude of mind toward 
holiness before its attainment is possible. Readiness, 
steadiness, hopefulness, obedience, consistency, and rev- 
erence. This should all be made as clear and simple 
and important as possible. 

2. The Call to Holiness 

Under this head there is an opportunity to discuss 
the importance of a life-service decision, and show 
that every person should have some definite Christian 
service in view as a career. But the important thing 
here is to show that whether all people have a definite 
call to a career or not, all people are definitely called 
to character ; that is, all are called to be holy. Here a 



212 EVANGELISM 

study of the following passages will be helpful : Lev. 
II. 44, 45. Jer. 31. 33, 34. Ezek. 36. 25. Matt. 5. 
48. Rom. I. 17; 8. 28-30. I Cor. i. 2. 2 Cor. 6. 17, 
18. Eph. I. 4. I Thess. 4. 7. Heb. 12. 14. i Pet. 
I. 2. 

3. The Obligation to be Holy 

It is not mere caprice on the part of God to call men 
to holiness. The call is grounded in the nature of 
things. 

1. It is reasonable. God is holy and to be in fellow- 
ship with him man must be holy. There can be no true 
fellowship between uncongenial people. It is reason- 
able, then, for God to call men to holiness. A study 
may be made of the following passages: i Cor. i. 2. 
Eph. I. 4. Phil. I. I ; 4. 21. i Thess. 5. 23, 24. 2 
Thess. 2. 12. 

2. It is right to be holy. God has a right to de- 
mand it. That right is grounded in three things : 
(i) Creatorship, (2) Redemption, (3) Fatherhood. 
God rests his claim to man's holiness on these things. 

4. The Possibility of Holiness 

Some regard it as an ideal which may be looked up 
to in this life, but can only be realized in some other life ; 
that is, the practice of holiness in this world is regarded 
as impossible. But obligation and duty never extend 
to the impossible. It is because holiness is possible that 
God requires it. When Jesus says, ''Follow me,'' he is 
calHng men to holiness. See Matt. 5. 48; 19. 21. 
Rom. 8. I, 23-29; 6. 11-23; 12. I, 2. 2 Cor. 3. 18. 
Col. I. 



THE DOCTRINAL BASIS 213 

5. The Content of Holiness 

Fundamentally, it means separation, but not separa- 
tion in space, but in the quality of character. It is 
(i) separation from sin, (2) separation to God, (3) 
separation for service. It would therefore include the 
three terms (i) separation from sin, conversion; (2) 
separation to God, holiness; (3) separation for serv- 
ice, sanctification. The following are helpful pas- 
sages: Psa. I, 15, 24, 50, 139. Isa. I. Amos 5. Mi- 
cah 6. Ezek. 26. Jer. 31. i Cor. i. 30. Rom. 6. 19, 
20. I Thess. 4. 3-7. 2 Thess. 2. 1-3. Heb. 12. 14. 
2 Cor. I. 12; 7. I. Eph. 4. 24. In these passages we 
have the words "holiness'' and "sanctification." The 
same thought is found in i Cor. 9. 13 and 2 Tim. 3. 
15, as "strength" and "reverence"; in Heb. 7. 23, as 
"piety"; in Phil. 4. 8 and i Tim. 2. 2, as "honor" or 
"dignity" ; in i John 3. 3, as "purity." Putting them 
together, the holy person is one who is strong, reverent, 
honorable, dignified, pious, pure, holy. That is so far 
from the experience that some ranters have that it be- 
longs in a different world. Holiness must be saved to 
the young life of the church. 

6. The Attainment of Holiness 

I. Separation. Paul discusses this in 2 Cor. 6. 14- 
18. ( I ) No yokefellowship with moral contradictories. 
See Deut. 22. 9, 10. (2) No mingling of good and 
evil. The issue must be clear cut. No averaging up. 
(3) No communion of light and darkness; that is, there 
is to be no twilight experience. (4) No symphony with 
Christ and Satan. They cannot be harmonized. (5) 



214 EVANGELISM 

No mixing of faith and unbelief. (6) No serving of 
opposite masters. See Matt. 6. 24. (7) No place in 
a holy temple for idols. 

2. Cooperation. God and man together work out 
salvation in its completeness, which is holiness. See 
Phil. 2. 12, 13. 

3. Consecration. xA.ll one has and is must t)e given 
over to God. See Rom. 12. i and i Thess. 5. 23. 

4. The Scope of Holiness. Holiness extends to the 
whole life in all manner of conduct. HoHness is not a 
personal luxury which is to be used in a few rare expe- 
riences of life. It is life at its best operating in the 
whole program of activity. 

"The Baptism of the Holy Spirit/' as it is called, and 
is sometimes used as a term equivalent to ''holiness/' 
is not the same thing. Holiness is a complete Chris- 
tian life, or perfect soul health. The baptism of the 
Holy Spirit is a special endument of power for a 
special kind of service, witnessing, or, as we would put 
it to-day, soul-winning. See the book of Acts i. 8; 2. 
1-4, 38, 39; 4. 8, 13, 31, 33; 5. 32, 33; 6. 5, 8; 7- 55; 
8. 15-19, 29-40; 10. 38, 44-46; II. 16-18; 13. 2-4; 19. 
1-6; 20. 28. See also Joel 2. 28. John 14. 26; 15. 26, 
27] 16. 13-15. 

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is a study by itself. 
Holiness can be summed up in this way : ( i ) 
It is possible as an attainment. (2) It is ef- 
ficient as an equipment. (3) It is satisfactory as an 
experience. (4) It is controlling as an influence. 
(5) It is unanswerable as an argument. (6) It is 
powerful as a dynamic. When people old or young 
fully understand holiness they will want to attain it. 



THE DOCTRINAL BASIS 215 

7. Last Things 

Under this head the Resurrection, ImmortaHty and 
the Judgment can be briefly discussed. Nothing elab- 
orate should be attempted with these doctrines at this 
stage of training, first, because these doctrines do not 
immediately relate to the program of everyday life as 
that program is understood by young people, and sec- 
ond, because they are a little too abstract for these im- 
mature minds. But these doctrines should be ex- 
plained, so the main idea of them could be grasped and 
they be placed where they belong in the body of the 
young Christians' faith. On the resurrection the pas- 
tor would do well to give a simple exposition of Matt. 
28, Mark 15, Luke 24, John 11. 23-26; 20-21; and 
I Cor. 15, Paul's great classic on the resurrection. The 
different theories of the resurrection might be left for a 
later period of training. The main thing now is to 
show them that Jesus conquered death and is alive 
forevermore, and that because he rose, so all who 
are his disciples will rise, too, and be with him forever. 

The resurrection is, of course, closely connected with 
immortality. Study passages for the subject of im- 
mortality would be the following: Matt. 25. 34. John 
3- 16, 36; 5. 24; 6. 47, 58. Rom. 8. 17, 39; 6. 22, 
Phil. 3. 20. I Thess. 4. 17. 2 Cor. 5. 1-8. i John 
5. II, 12. 

Closely following upon this a brief discussion on the 
Judgment can be given. The chief thing to emphasize 
as a practical problem is that all life tends to fixity of 
form and direction. "As the twig is bent so is the tree 
inclined." The main thing in life is to give it a God- 



2i6 EVANGELISM 

ward direction and a spiritual content. Another thing 
that needs to be pointed out is that character fixes des- 
tiny. Every man fixes his own destiny ; in a word, he 
determines his own judgment. God only declares the 
judgment that man determines for himself. No man 
has any grievance against God if he falls upon an 
eternal tragedy, for he brought that tragedy upon him- 
self in spite of all that God by patient love and bound- 
less grace did for him in the redemption offered in 
Jesus Christ. God sends no man to hell; if man ever 
goes to hell, he sends himself there. If he will not go 
to the place God prepared for him, he will go to the 
place he prepared for himself. The lost man is the 
man that refuses to let God save him. This should be 
clearly taught to give the young people right thought 
about God. They must be free from any notion of a 
monster or jailer God. The following are suggestive 
study passages: Isa. 28. 17. Matt. 25. 31-46. Luke 
16. 19-31. John 5. 22; 15. 1-8; 16. 8-14. Matt. 12. 
41. Heb. 9. 2y, James 2. 13. Psa. i. 5. 

A good deal of space has been devoted to this part of 
evangelistic work because it is fundamental to sane re- 
ligious experience and efficient Christian work. Young 
Christians not only should be soundly converted but 
they should be thoroughly grounded in the funda- 
mental doctrines of the Christian faith. The outline 
given above is only a suggestion which the pastors can 
adapt to the needs of their classes, giving it in a fuller 
or more simple way as the case may require. 



CHAPTER III 
THE CHRISTIAN SERVICE 

The third section in the program of training may 
be called practice. The best way to fix religion in 
character and make it practical is to set it to work. 
Many things which appear a little hazy in theory be- 
come perfectly clear in practice. Religion enjoyed as 
a personal luxury is of little value. It is only as it is 
applied to the practical problems of life that it shows 
its worth. If young people have something to do that 
brings their religion into action, they will rarely either 
lapse or become indifferent. 

Young people want action, and they need it to 
bring them to their best. The more they put their 
religion into action the better they will love and the 
more tenaciously they will hold to it. Bringing other 
people to Christ is the most important and enjoyable 
part of religious work. 

Nothing better defines one's own religion and puts it 
into concrete form than personal work in soul-winning. 
It is much easier to present religion to a crowd than it 
is to an individual. Many a person would rather lead 
a meeting than to talk personally with an individual 
about his soul. One must be very sure of his own 
ground when the other person has the privilege of talk- 
ing back and asking questions. But young people in 
the enthusiasm of their new-found joy want to talk 
to others about it if they only know how. They would 
love to bring their young friends to Christ, and while 

217 



2i8 EVANGELISM 

that desire is strong they should be taught how to do 
it. They are not yet mature enough in their rehgious 
experience to answer all the objections that may be 
raised, but the exuberance of their new life in Christ 
will often succeed where cold, exact reason might fail. 
Later on they can add clear and exact reason to their 
enthusiasm, and then they will be well-nigh irresistible. 
One of their greatest feelings of need is to know more 
about the Bible. They know that it contains all that 
is necessary for instruction in soul-winning, but they 
do not know where or how to find it. The training 
class is the place where they should be taught the 
use of the Bible in soul-winning. Many older people 
would be far better soul-winners if they knew more 
about their Bibles. The best personal workers the 
writer ever had were young people whose ages ranged 
from sixteen to twenty whom he trained in a class like 
the one here suggested. Those young people thus 
trained and employed became very active in all the 
work of the church. One of the most important things 
done for those young personal workers was to prepare 
for them a small personal workers' Bible and to teach 
them how to use it. This Bible is for the most part 
made up of familiar passages, and about all are taken 
from the New Testament, so that the labor of memor- 
izing them will be very slight. The passages can be 
put on the blackboard, and the class drilled in their lo- 
cation, use, and meaning before they are used in per- 
sonal work. 

Personal Workers' Bible 

The value of using the Bible in personal work is that 



THE CHRISTIAN SERVICE 219 

it takes the worker out of the realm of argument. If 
objections are raised, the worker can say : "These con- 
ditions are not mine, but God's. I did not make them, 
and I cannot change them.'' Every Christian ought to 
be a soul-winner and it is important that these young 
Christians should begin that work as soon as they are 
able to do it. Each person may work in his own way, 
but he should do something to help save this world. 
The wise use of the subjoined passages will save many 
an inexperienced worker from confusion and failure. 

The plan is so arranged that groups of passages 
are brought together so as to make them immediately 
available in personal work. The groups are under four 
heads : "The Why," "The What," "The How," "The 
When." Then there follows a group which may be 
used in meeting the stock objections that are raised by 
so many people with whom the personal workers will 
have to deal. 

The first thing that is to be considered is, Why was 
it necessary to have salvation at all? The reason for 
it was that sin had entered the world and alienated 
man from God. The passages used under "The Why" 
all show man's sinfulness and sin. The worker's plan 
is then for convenience put into the following form: 

The Why 



I. Sin < 



Rom. 5. 12 

I John I. 8 

Rom. 3. 23. Key verse 

I John I. 10 

Rom. ^. 10 



220 



EVANGELISM 



The key verse shows sin in the form of commission 
and omission; that is, a man in sin either transgresses 
the law of God or fails to reaUze God's purpose in his 
Ufe. In either case Hfe is a failure. 



I 



II. Salvation ^ 



The What 
fMatt. I. 21 
I John 5. II, 12 
Rom. 5. 6, 8, 10 
Luke 19. 10. Key verse 
Isa. 53. 5 
Luke 5. 32 
I Tim. I. 15 



These passages all center in Christ, and the import- 
ant thing here is not salvation as an abstract doctrine, 
but Christ as a personal Saviour. Man is not offered 
a law to be obeyed, but a Saviour to be loved and fol- 
lowed. God's law remedy for sin failed, but his love 
remedy in Christ succeeded. The worker is not to 
present a creed to be believed, but a Saviour to be 
trusted and loved. The whole matter is to be kept 
personal. 



THE CHRISTIAN SERVICE 



221 



III. The Steps ^ 



The How 



Repent 



Forsake 



Believe 



Receive 



Confess sin 



^Matt. 4. 17 
Luke 13. 2, 3 
Acts 17. 39 

; Luke 14. 33 
Prov. 28. 13 

7ohn 5. 24 
John 6. 47 
Acts 16. 31 

^John I. 12 
Acts I. 8 
Rom. 5. ir 



( I John I. 9 
^ Prov. 28. 13 



Confess Christ \^/r ' 

•' I Matt. ID. 32 



These steps should be carefully explained, so that 
no part of the human requirement would be over- 
looked or left undone. When one is asked, "How shall 
I become a Christian?'* the above steps may be ex- 
plained as the condition of passing from sin to salva- 
tion. These are the Scriptural conditions that are to be 
met sooner or later in the Christian Hfe. This outline 
looks far more complicated than the experience of be- 
ing saved really is, but the above are the steps that are 
actually taken either consciously or unconsciously in 
any genuine conversion. 



EVANGELISM 



IV. Now 



The When 

"Deut. 4. 29 

John 6. 37 

Luke 14. 17 

John 5. 24 

2 Cor. 6. 2 
^Jer. 29. 13 

God is always ready to save. Whatever delay there is 
is caused by man. God's time is always now, and when 
mian is ready to meet God's conditions salvation issues 
at once. For the danger of delay and the attention to 
other things see Luke 9. 59-62. 

There are needed now a few passages that will help 
the worker when objections of one sort or another are 
raised. So the following are suggested : 

The Excuses of Man. The Answ^ers of God. 

{ Mark 8. 36 



Too much to give up. 
Too bad to be saved 

Temptation too great 



jlsa. I. 18; 55. 7. Heb. 7. 25 

I Cor. 10. 13. 2 Cor. 12. 9, 
10. Heb. 2. 17, 18; 4. 
15, 16 



Good works will save j Rom. 3. 20. Eph. 2. 8, 9 
Good as Christians are 



Cannot hold out 



\ ^latt. 5. 20, 48; 18. 3. John 

) 3. 3-5- ^ Cor. 5. 10 

fRom. 8. 35-39. Eph. 3. 20, 

21. Phil. 4. 13, 19. 2 

Tim. I. 12. Heb. 6. 16- 

20; 13. 8. Jude 24 



THE CHRISTIAN SERVICE 223 

These are the stock excuses and the scriptural an- 
swers that may be given to them. If the objector will 
not listen to the promises of Scripture, there is httle 
use for a young personal worker to spend his time try- 
ing to convince him with arguments. Little is gained 
by argument any way, except in rare cases. For the 
most part those who are unwilling to become Chris- 
tians are not held back so much by intellectual diffi- 
culties as they are by their unwillingness to give up 
their sin or because they are not willing to dedicate 
themselves to a life of unselfish service. The difficulty 
is not mental but moral. This little personal workers' 
Bible when judiciously used will meet all the needs of 
reasonable and earnest people. 

For convenience the whole above plan may be put 
together in one form like the following and printed 
on a card or, better still, on small sheets of paper 
which can be pasted on the fly leaves of their Bibles or 
folded and carried in their pocket Testaments. Thus 
it would be always available for immediate use, and by 
studying it in their leisure the workers could become 
perfectly familiar with it. 



THE PLAN COMPLETE 
The Why 



L Sin 



Rom 5. 12 

I John I. 8 

Rom. 3. 23. Key verse 

I John I. 10 

Rom. 3. 10 



224 



EVANGELISM 



THE PLAN COMFJJETE— Continued 

The What 

Matt. I. 21 

I John 5. II, 12 

Rom. 5. 6, 8^ 10 

Luke 19. 10. Key verse 

Isa. 53. 5 

Luke 5. 32 

I Tim. I. 15 



IL Salvation^ 



IIL The Steps ^ 



The How 

Repent 

Forsake 
Believe 

Receive 

Confess sin 
Confess Christ 



Matt 4. 17 
Luke 13. 2, 3 
Acts 17. 39 

(Luke 14. 33 
\ Prov. 28. 13 

John 5. 24 
John 6. 47 
Acts 16. 31 

John I. 12 
Acts I. 8 
Rom. 5. II 

( I John I. 9 
\ Prov. 28. 13 

( Rom. 10. 9, 10 
I Matt. 10. 32 



THE CHRISTIAN SERVICE 



22$ 







The When 








^Deut. 4. 29 








John 6. 37 






Now- 


Luke 14. 17 
John 5. 24 
2 Cor. 6. 2 
Jer. 29. 13 




r 
I. 


Too much to give up. Mark 8. 36 




2. 


Too bad to be saved. Isa. i. 18; 
55.7. Heb. 7. 25 




3- 


Temptation too great, i Cor. 10. 
13. 2 Cor. 12. 9, 10. Heb. 2. 17, 
18; 4. 15, 16 


Excuses 


4. 


Good works will save. Rom. 3. 20. 


AND ^ 




Eph. 2. 8, 9 


Answers 


5- 


Good as Christians are. Matt. 5. 
20, 48; 18. 3. John 3. 3-5. 2 
Cor. 5. 10 




6. 


Cannot hold out. Rom. 8. 35-39. 
Eph. 3. 20, 21. Phil. 4. 13, 19. 
2 Tim. I. 12. Heb. 6. 16-20; 13. 






8. 


Jude 24 



The fourth and last section in the training has to do 
with church membership. 

I. The Articles of Faith, or the Creed of the Church, 
These should be simplified, explained, and as far as 
possible be put into modern English, so that there 
would be no doubt in the minds of young people what 
these articles of faith really mean. The essentials of 



226 EVANGELISM 

the Articles of Religion could be put into some 
such simple form, as this, for example: (i) The 
Fatherhood of God. (2) The Saviourhood and Deity 
of Jesus Christ. (3) the Person and Deity of the 
Holy Spirit. (4) Sin. (5) Redemption. (6) Sal- 
vation. (7)' Forgiveness. (8) Man's freedom of 
the will. (9) The Sufficiency of the Holy Scrip- 
tures of both the Old and New Testaments 
as the rule of faith, conduct, and Christian cul- 
ture. (10) Faith. (11) The resurrection. (12) Im- 
mortality. (13) Judgment. These different subjects 
can be explained so that even very young Christians 
can understand them. 

2. The General Rules, or the Conditions of Member- 
ship in the Church and the Duties Expected of Church 
Members, The rules are to be interpreted by the pas- 
tor. 

3. The Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, 
are to be fully explained as to their nature and mean- 
ing and their place in the church. 

4. The questions that are asked of all candidates 
for membership as they are received into the church 
are to be gone over carefully with the candidates be- 
fore they are received into membership, so that every 
part of the service will be perfectly understood. 

A good deal should be made of the reception into 
church membership. It should be so dignified and im- 
pressive that it would never be forgotten. Many peo- 
ple will remember their initiation into a lodge much 
longer than they will their reception into the church. 
That should not be so. Reception into the church 
of Christ ought to be made the most impressive and 



THE CHRISTIAN SERVICE i^2y 

beautiful service that any person ever witnesses, for, 
next to being saved, it is the most important thing one 
ever does. So, after a careful training, reception into 
the church should be a red-letter day in the lives of 
these young people. 

The aim of this course of training is to make the 
members of the class (i) spiritual Christians, (2) 
biblical Christians, (3) active Christians, (4) intelli- 
gent church members. If this kind of work were done, 
there would be fewer backsliders, less formality in 
the church, better church attendance, more work done 
for the Kingdom, and less ground for the charge of 
inconsistent Christian living. It is a work that re- 
quires much tact and patience, but there is no invest- 
ment of time and strength that makes a larger return 
in life's higher values. 



CHAPTER IV 



THE ART OF SOUL-WINNING 



This is one of the most difficult and delicate of all 
the arts, and it is an art. If it is art to carve a marble 
block into a beautiful statue, or to paint a landscape so 
that the river seems to flow and the leaves to move, 
enabling one almost to smell the flowers in the fore- 
ground; if it is an art to compose an oratorio that 
moves the soul, or to write a poem that gives nature a 
voice, certainly it is an art to help build a soul into the 
image of God. It is such a difficult art, the material 
upon which one is to work is so precious, and to blunder 
is so serious — for nothing is more serious than to dam- 
age a soul — that many people would rather not at- 
tempt it at all than to run the risk of doing it badly. 
Molding character is a serious business. 

A person must spend time in learning how to ap- 
proach people on the matter of religion. No standard 
rule can be given, as people are so different, and each 
case must be studied by itself. Young enthusiastic per- 
sonal workers often make a mistake in thinking that 
the same method of approach will be equally effective 
with all people, and after they have success with one 
person and are rebuffed by another, they are apt to get 
discouraged and give up personal work altogether. 
Preachers often get discouraged for the same reason. 
There has to be very much individual work done in 

228 



THE ART OF SOUL-WINNING 229 

what looks like mass work. There is a mass action, of 
course, where there is not much individual thinking or 
decision ; but when the mass falls apart into individuals, 
the individual is very little affected by his mass action. 
The actions that become habits and grow into charac- 
ter are individual actions, even though sometimes they 
may have mass expression. God does not save masses, 
but individuals in masses. Each individual must make 
a specific and personal act of surrender and consecra- 
tion to God. The reason that so many different kinds 
of invitations are given in any one meeting is that the 
method that will reach one will not appeal to another. 
So we must, like Paul, become all things to all men, 
that by all means we may save some. The same form 
of invitation might not work with the same individual 
at different times. We are more or less the creatures, 
if not the victims, of moods. Men must be approached 
according to their moods. Men do that in business, in 
politics, and in recreations. They ought to be wise 
enough to do it also in religion. 

In the art of soul-winning two things are to be con- 
sidered: first, the qualification of the soul-winner, and, 
second, the personal example of Jesus (see Part IV, 
Chapter V). 

I, In the personal qualification of the soul-winner 
there are several things that demand attention. 

I. Goodness, No man long succeeds in trying to 
make men what he is not himself. If his own religion 
is not genuine, he may be more or less successful in 
the conduct of a meeting, but he cannot long be suc- 
cessful in dealing directly with individuals. The great- 
est test of personal piety, is to try to win some one else 



230 EVANGELISM 

to Christ. In close contact with another soul, unless 
one has genuine goodness, his lips are closed. One can- 
not urge the claims of Christ on another, when he 
knows that he has not met those claims himself. 

But one must not only be good ; he must be consistent 
in his goodness. He must be of unblemished reputation 
in his community. It may seem very commonplace to 
say that before he can successfully be a soul-winner he 
must be both respected and trusted, even by the man on 
the outside, but that is the fact. A man can very 
quickly be put to silence if something is known against 
his moral character, or if he is not clean or self-con- 
trolled in his personal habits. If a minister does not 
keep his appointments, pay his debts, or behave him- 
self with dignity and sincerity, he will never be suc- 
cessful in personal evangelism. Goodness which is 
both constant and consistent is the first essential in 
personal evangelism. 

2. Tact, Tactless goodness often does much harm. 
It often makes itself ridiculous, and that defeats its 
own end. Sometimes a person is turned against re- 
ligion permanently by the tactless approach of a well- 
meaning but tactless soul-winner. That is very un- 
fortunate. The one is disgusted, the other disap- 
pointed, and both are defeated. The one sinned against 
himself for refusing to be helped, even though he was 
approached tactlessly. He ought to have overlooked 
the blunder in method because of the sincerity of the 
motive. The other sinned against his neighbor by not 
using ordinary common sense in the most important 
work of God, that of soul-winning; he hindered him 
in his attempt to help him. 



THE ART OF SOUL-WINNING 231 

No good business house would put on the road or 
behind the counter a tactless salesman. He might sell 
some goods, but he would alienate more customers 
that he would win, and that would not be good busi- 
ness. 

It is to prevent tactless people doing just that thing 
that the pastor must use the greatest care in the selec- 
tion of his personal workers. In soul-winning not even 
piety is of greater importance than common sense. 
There is no place where the Golden Rule can be ap- 
plied to greater advantage than in personal evangelism. 
The evangelist should never make the person whom he 
would win to Christ so conspicuous as to embarrass, 
much less to humiliate him. Such a thing is inexcus- 
able. 

There are known to the writer two most excellent 
and useful laymen, one of whom was kept out of the 
church for ten years and the other seventeen years be- 
cause of the tactless approach of two very sincere and 
good men, one of whom was a minister. Consecration 
and earnestness will not atone for a lack of tact. The 
practice of the Golden Rule would have saved many a 
person to the Kingdom who is now lost to it by being 
treated in a way that was neither wise nor delicate. 
If fishers of men were as wise as fishermen, they would 
be far more successful. No fisherman would ever try 
to make shy fish bite by thrashing the pool with his 
pole. Yet some fishers of men try to drive men into the 
Kingdom by rash, and even violent, methods. Men 
must be won to Christ, not frightened, forced or coaxed 
into accepting him. The very word ''winner" indi- 
cates delicacy, grace, tact. No one would think of tak- 



232 EVANGELISM 

ing a diamond to a stonemason to set, even though he 
sets stones. He sets stones, not gems. Who would 
think of taking a chronometer to a blacksmith for re- 
pair, though he repairs machines? They are taken to 
the highest-skilled experts. Yet the soul is more valu- 
able than the diamond, and more delicate than the chro- 
nometer, although many people seem to think that almost 
anybody can blunder with a soul with impunity. The 
pastor is, or is supposed to be, an expert in this high 
art of skilled workmanship, and he cannot, without 
peril, delegate this work to unskilled workmen. He 
must lead in this work himself, and what he does not 
do directly he must carefully guard and supervise. A 
butcher's cleaver is too rough an instrument with 
which to remove a cataract from the eye. No rough 
instrument should be used on a human soul that is to 
be won to Christ. Volunteer soul-winners should be 
studied with great care and employed with great cau- 
tion. Many such people do not sense the seriousness 
of the work for which they volunteer. Before they 
are set to such a task they should be most carefully 
trained, especially in the art of approach. If the ap- 
proach is wisely made, more than half the work is done. 
The man on the outside is more or less on the defensive. 
He must not be made to feel that he is going to be at- 
tacked, but that some one who has found something 
far better than he has, wants to share it with him. 
The soul-winner is to approach him as a brother to 
help, not as a master to conquer him. 

So that spiritual sagacity, or what might be called 
sanctified common sense, is of vital importance in per- 
sonal evangelism. It makes goodness practical. 



THE ART OF SOUL-WINNING 233 

3. Faith, This faith is not a mysterious some- 
thing that Hes outside of the realm of common experi- 
ence. Christian faith is not something apart ; it is the 
faith or confidence of common Hfe appHed to higher 
things or persons. If we trusted God, who is always 
dependable, as much as we do men, who are often un- 
dependable, the world would be transformed. It is not 
a different kind of faith that men need to make them 
successful soul-winners, but the same kind of faith 
that makes them successful in any other work in life. 
It is the persons or things to which the faith is di- 
rected that makes the difference. Much of the best in 
both experience and service is missed because most 
people think that faith in the Christian sense is radically 
different from faith in the ordinary sense, or that it 
requires a separate faculty of the soul to exercise it. 
The Christian life is not another and different life 
lived alongside of the ordinary life; it is the ordinary 
life brought up to its best in the will of God. 

The writer has elsewhere illustrated the faith of per- 
sonal evangelism by the faith of successful salesman- 
ship. A salesman must believe in certain fundamental 
things, or he is a failure from the start. He must be- 
lieve in at least the following things, or he will have 
neither enthusiasm nor confidence in his task : 

( I ) He must believe in a market. No man can get 
up much enthusiasm to sell goods if he does not believe 
there is a market; that is to say, a demand or a need 
for them. The demand may only be potential, but the 
need must be actual. If the need is there, he can create 
the demand by calling attention to the need; but if 
there is no need, he cannot create a demand, and so 



234 EVANGELISM 

cannot sell goods. That is precisely true of evangelism. 
The evangelist must believe with all his heart that the 
world does need the gospel. The demand for the gos- 
pel may not be very urgent, but he knows that he can 
create a demand by showing how desperately the world 
is in need of the good news and that it is the only hope 
of the world. But he knows well that he cannot work 
up a fictitious demand for that which is not needed. 
If the world does not need the truth, if the presenta- 
tion of Christ as a Saviour will awake no sense of 
need in men's hearts, there can be no compelling motive 
in evangelism, and the whole work is doomed from the 
start. Where there is no sense of need there will be 
no passion to help. So the evangelist must first be- 
lieve there is a need for the gospel. 

(2) He must believe in himself. No matter how 
keenly a salesman may feel, or how honestly he may 
believe in a market, he will fail if he does not believe 
that he can deliver the goods. It will not do for him to 
discover or create a market, only to leave it to his com- 
petitor. He takes the order with the full assurance 
that he is able to fill it. He would be a poor salesman 
who, after he had represented his house and exhibited 
his samples, told the prospective buyer that in a few 
days a more competent man would be along and book 
the order. Now, the personal evangelist must have 
the same sort of self-confidence. He must believe that 
he can present the gospel in such manner that men will 
accept it. 

This is especially important for the pastor. How 
often it is true that the pastor does not believe that con- 
versions will occur under his own preaching! He can 



THE ART OF SOUL-WINNING 235 

preach for the ordinary culture of his church, but 
when he wants to win souls he must get somebody 
that can do it to come and help him. He too often 
feels that he cannot do it because he never tried. Even 
when he gives an invitation he is surprised if there 
is a response to it. He ought to be surprised if there 
were not a response to it. Every pastor is genuinely 
glad when men and women are led to Christ and 
brought into the church, no matter who does the win- 
ning; but there is no joy so great, and nothing con- 
tributes so much to steadiness of faith and positiveness 
in preaching, as conversions under one's own preach- 
ing. Nothing gives the pastor more encouragement 
in his evangelistic organization than to have efficient 
bands of personal workers under his direction and in- 
struction. If more pastors would believe more in 
themselves as the agents whom God uses for this work, 
and practise personal and pastoral evangelism more, 
there would be far fewer dead churches and dis- 
couraged pastors than there are to-day. 

This wholesome self-confidence which makes one 
successful IS very far removed from that obnoxious 
egotism which invites failure in advance. This self- 
confidence is the assurance that one is doing what God 
wants him to do and in the way God wants him to 
do it. That is a kind of authority which is very hard 
to resist. 

(3) He must believe in the genuineness of his 
goods. A good salesman must believe in the genuine- 
ness of his goods; that is, that they are according 
to sample. Otherwise he can neither hope to hold old 
customers nor make new ones. If the goods are not 



236 EVANGELISM 

up to standard; if they are represented as first class 
and turn out to be fourth class, the salesman knows 
that it is of no use for him to go back again. He has 
been discredited. His goods are a sham and he is a 
fraud. 

That is equally true with the evangelist. He must 
believe in the power of the gospel he preaches, in the 
love and grace of Jesus Christ whom he offers to the 
people, or he might as well go out of the work. Will 
Christ save any man who will give him a chance? 
It is not hard to believe that Christ will save the fine 
young people of the Sunday school, but can he save 
the submerged class that can be reached only by per- 
sonal work, or by the rescue mission ? Will the pastor 
have the same confidence with both classes, and know 
that to Christ no case is hopeless ? The gospel can build 
the wreckage of human life into self-respecting and 
efficient men and women again. The evangelist must 
believe that, before he can make any approach to the 
so-called ''down and out" class with any hope of 
success. 

It would do many a pastor and personal worker 
a great deal of good to pay frequent visits to rescue 
missions and watch the transformations that take 
place as the outcasts of the city enter upon the new 
life in Christ. It would restore many a shattered faith 
and give courage to many a timid preacher and hesi- 
tant worker. They would, at first, be almost shocked 
at what looked like the holy boldness of the missioner, 
but they would soon realize that the missioner took 
God at his word and believed the gospel was what the 
Bible represented it to be. Any preacher or worker 



THE ART OF SOUL-WINNING 2zy 

ought to do that. Like good salesmen, they must be- 
Heve in the genuineness of their goods (see Rom. i. i6; 
Heb. 7. 25). 

(4) He must beHeve in his firm. A good salesman 
must believe in the integrity of the firm he represents, 
else he cannot sell goods — at least not twice in the same 
place. Men cannot be enthusiastic for, or confident in, 
the men in whom they do not believe. What gives a 
salesman courage is confidence in the reliability of his 
house. He trades on the reputation of the men who 
built up the business. He can say — and it is of immense 
value to him — ''if this bill of goods does not prove to be 
entirely satisfactory, my house will make it good. 
Return anything that is not up to standard, at our 
expense, and it will cost you nothing. You can't lose 
in trading with our house." But before a salesman 
can say that, he must believe that his house will stand 
back of him. He must believe that the word of his 
house IS as good as gold. 

That is what the evangelist must believe. He must 
believe that when Christ gave his great commission, in 
Matt. 28. 18-20, he meant what he said; that when he 
uttered such statements as Luke 19. 10, John 5. 24, 6. 
37-47, John 3. 16, he was in earnest. He must believe 
that John i. 12, i John i. 8-10, 5. 2, 12, Acts 2y. 18, 
Rom,. 5. I, 6, 8, 10, Heb. 7. 25, and a multitude of 
other passages are true, and that God stands by him in 
his work, or else he will have neither courage nor con- 
stancy in the matter. The soul-winner is not working 
alone. He is doing team work with Christ in help- 
ing to save the world. His faith, therefore, will ex- 
press itself in a recognition of the world's need, in self- 



238 EVANGELISM 

confidence, in a conviction that the gospel will do all 
that it claims it will do, and that God will be with him 
and give him success. 

4. Knowledge, He must know men; he ought to 
be able to sense the spirit of the times, but above all he 
must know his Bible. He may not know it as the 
scholar does, but he must know it experimentally. He 
must know it as one of the instruments of sal- 
vation. He must know what the great evan- 
gelistic passages are, and where they are found, 
and be able to use them. The use of the Bible in per- 
sonal work has been treated in a previous chapter, and 
little more needs to be said here on that subject. But 
here, again, a good salesman may be able to teach an 
important lesson. 

If he is selling a set of books like Dickens, Hugo, 
Thackeray, or Scott, he does not have to know the 
whole set, but he must know those salient parts which 
are the selling points. So he masters his prospectus, 
and sells his set on a few talking points, which in a 
way epitomize the value of the set and throw some 
light on the characteristics of the author. Just so 
should the personal worker know his Bible. He can- 
not know it all, but he does need to know^ those parts 
of it that are vital to his particular work. A judicious 
use of the Bible will not only save him from the possi- 
ble errors of his own judgment, but it will give him an 
authority which, when backed up by his own experi- 
ence, will make his word almost irresistible. 

5. Prayer. It almost goes without the saying that 
a soul-winner must be a man of prayer; and this is 
important, both for the eflfect it produces on himself 



THE ART OF SOUL-VVINNING 239 

and the effect it produces on others. Nothing puts one 
en rapport with another Hke prayer. Many a person 
who had a cold indifference to the unchurched world, 
and especialty the foreigners in his own land, and also 
the vast shadowy millions of the non-Christian world, 
has had an evangelistic passion created in him by mak- 
ing a prayer list of a few unsaved persons, in whom 
he had no particular interest, and praying for them 
every day by name. A man will not do that very long 
before he will seek some opportunity to help answer his 
own prayers. He will see how incongruous it is to be 
constantly asking God to do something that he might 
better do himself. So he and God become partners in 
the winning of that soul, God always doing what man 
cannot do^ but man always doing the thing he can do. 

It is in intercessory prayer that men catch the evan- 
gelistic passion of Jesus. Prayer before, in, and after 
the evangelistic effort is a safe rule to go by in evan- 
gelistic work. 

But prayer also has a wonderful effect upon others. 
However little it may be understood, the fact that 
prayer does affect the other person is well known to all 
who have had any considerable experience in evangel- 
istic work. Most great revivals have been prayed down 
by sick or aged saints who could do little else than 
pray. Many a pastor has been prayed into eloquence 
by a few godly people in his congregation who were 
unable to hear him preach. Sometimes he was seized 
with an unction not his own, and he felt as though God 
was speaking through him, and afterward he learned 
that at that very hour his most spiritually gifted saint 
was praying for him. How many a Sunday school 



240 EVANGELISM 

teacher has had the joy of seeing every unsaved mem- 
ber of the class yield to Christ's kingship on Decision 
Day after he or she had prayed for them for weeks by 
name. 

Only those who have tried it know what a powerful 
factor in evangelism is the laying siege to a soul by 
prayer. Many a soul is won by the siege of prayer 
who could not be moved by the assault of argument or 
the subtle form of persuasion. Prayer, especially in- 
tercessory prayer, is fundamental in evangelism. 

6. The Holy Spirit, This has already been implied in 
section four under 'Taith," namely, the cooperation of 
God in the work of soul-saving. Jesus says in John 
1 6 that the first work of the Holy Spirit is to convict 
of sin. In John 3 he says men must be born of the 
Spirit. In Acts i. 8 the power of the Holy Spirit such 
as came on the apostles at Pentecost, and many times 
later for the purpose of witnessing, which we to-day 
might call soul-winning, is a special divine help that 
soul-winners may seek and expect, in that most diffi- 
cult work of the Kingdom. 

The power of the Holy Spirit is put at the disposal 
of all those who endeavor to save those whom Christ 
has redeemed. Utter dependence upon the guidance 
and help of the Holy Spirit is essential in successful 
evangelism. The above personal qualifications are the 
first considerations in the art of soul-winning. 



CHAPTER V 
THE MASTER SOUL-WINNER 

Jesus used a variety of ways to win disciples. He 
adapted his message and method to the occasion and 
person. Sometimes he reached people by healing 
them, sometimes by feeding them, sometimes by teach- 
ing them, sometimes by appreciating them, Hke the 
woman of the street who anointed him (see Luke 7. 
36-47), soraetimes by comforting, all the time by serv- 
ing them. His evangelism was made effective by wise 
teaching and loving service. No evangelist could do 
better than to sit at his feet and study his method and 
catch his spirit; than to watch him in action and see 
how he did it, and then, with humility, reverence, and 
faith, try to do likewise. 

A study of the method of Jesus would correct many 
of the faults that are committed by honest people who 
take their own conversion as the norm by which all 
conversions, and therefore all methods, are to be 
judged. If a different method is employed from the 
one by which they were converted, they suspect its 
utility, and if the resulting conversion expresses itself 
in a different form than theirs, they suspect its genu- 
ineness. There must be almost as many methods as 
men, and there will be as many forms of expression 
as there are temperaments, training, and peculiarities 

241 



242 EVANGELISM 

among the converted. All this could easily be corrected 
by a study of the methods of Jesus. 

One interesting study would be the different methods 
employed by Jesus in healing blind men. One might 
say that these cases were nearly enough alike to be all 
healed in the same way. Blindness was blindness, and 
the way to open blind eyes was to open them; why, 
then, not use the same method with all? Because to 
Jesus every man's personality was sacred, and he would 
do violence to no man's personal feelings or rights, 
even for the sake of doing him good. With Jesus it 
was not merely a matter of doing good, but of doing 
the most good, and doing it in the best way. Jesus 
connected the healing of the blind men with their dis- 
cipleship (see Matt. 20. 29-34; Mark 10. 46-52; John 
9. i-ii). 

Jesus approached Nicodemus in a different way than 
he did Saul of Tarsus. Read John 3. 11-13 and Acts 
9. 1-8; note the sick woman in Luke 8. 41-48 and the 
impotent man in John i. 43-51 ; the thief on the cross, 
Luke 23. 39-45 ; the calHng of his apostles, Mark i. 16- 
20; the man with the palsy, Matt. 9. 1-6; the woman 
of the street in Luke 7. 37-50; the demoniac of Ga- 
dara, Luke 8. 27-39; Zacchaeus, in Luke 19. 1-9; the 
multitude, John 10. 42. But the best case in which to 
study the psychology of Jesus as a soul-winner is the 
Samaritan woman in John 4. 5-42. Few cases ever 
will come in a man's ministry or in a lay worker's ex- 
perience more beset with difficulties than this instance. 
The consummate skill with which Jesus handles this 
case is a model in the art of successful personal evan- 
gelism. There were several obstacles in the way to 



THE MASTER SOUL-WINNER 243 

begin with, and she raised several others before she 
was converted. The approach of Jesus to this woman 
at the well in the interest of her soul was wholly 
gratuitous on his part. The initial obstacles in the 
way, according to the standards of the times, both 
social and religious, would have excused him from hav- 
ing anything to say to her or do for her. He owed her 
nothing, but Jesus recognized a far higher standard 
than the conventions of his day. He was her Saviour, 
and his coming was for her and those like her, as much 
as it was for those like Nathanael, Nicodemus and 
Saint John. The artificial distinctions that separate 
men did not count with Jesus. There was a common 
ground of need among all men — the need of God. 
Jesus came to meet that need, and to that mission all 
else was subordinate. That which gave most men an 
excuse to do nothing Jesus brushed aside and came 
to the work of helping men into the Kingdom as 
though no obstacle existed. When he said, "For what 
is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and 
lose his own soul?" (Matt. 16. 26) he was stating how 
precious a human soul was in his sight. None of the 
trivial things that men count excuses were serious mat- 
ters with him. 

What were the obstacles? 

I. The time and place. It was in an out-of-the-way 
place with none of the accessories that men deem es- 
sential for evangelistic work. It was about noon, and 
being under a hot, midday sun was not conducive to 
talking religion. It was a time when people avoided 
any unnecessary effort. It was no time or place to do 
evangelistic work, men would say. 



244 EVANGELISM 

2. Sex. The social customs of the day would ab- 
solve Xesus from any responsibility of speaking to her. 
Indeed, he would rather be condemned if he did. 

3. Social Station, She was poor and probably ig- 
norant She would be of no value to the church if she 
was saved, men would argue. She would be a liability 
rather than an asset to the church. She could serve on 
no committee, teach no class in Sunday school, con- 
tribute no support to the church, therefore, why waste 
time on her? That would be the attitude of not a 
few. 

4. Race, She was not a Jew, that is, not of his class. 
She was an alien, and a hostile ahen at that. Why at- 
tempt the impossible? Churches often sell out and 
move away because they are surrounded by unsym- 
pathetic aliens. The church men say, ''Our people are 
all gone, and we no longer have a constituency," though 
there may be more people in the neighborhood than 
before. 

5. Religion, She had a religion of her own; then 
why foist another religion upon her? That objection 
is sometimes raised against foreign missions. Men say, 
"These non-Christian people have a religion of their 
own, adapted to their country; then why disturb them 
by trying to force Christianity on them?" If Chris- 
tianity were no better than their religion, there would 
be no reason why it should be offered to them. If it 
is better, then there is every reason why it should be 
offered. So thought Jesus. 

6. Character. She was a woman of questionable 
character, and for Jesus to be found alone with her 
talking to her might have compromised his own char- 



THE MASTER SOUL-WINNER 245 

acter. Better not run the risk. It is well to be cau- 
tious, but too much caution may prevent service. 

What did Jesus do with these obstacles ? He ignored 
them and proceeded as if they were not. Now, notice 
the approach of Jesus. "Give me a drink.'' Here is 
a common need. Both were thirsty. He asks a sim- 
ple favor which anyone ought to grant to a tired, 
thirsty traveler. He asks it in a perfectly courteous 
manner. But his courtesy was met by her imperti- 
nence. She creates a fine opportunity to enter into race 
discussion — Jew and Samaritan. He might have an- 
swered her with both impertinence and scorn, as many 
another would. However little or much the Samari- 
tans had to boast of, certainly she had nothing upon 
which to base her impertinence. Jesus met her imper- 
tinence with courtesy, reminding her that if she knew 
who her petitioner was, she would be his petitioner, 
and if she was, he would grant her request. Then he 
told her that his gift was far greater than anything 
she had to give. He contrasted their gifts, and in the 
comparison his was everything and hers nothing. His 
continued courtesy disarmed her prejudice and over- 
came her impudence. Now she addresses him with 
respect. The poise of Jesus was one of the conquer- 
ing elements of his character. When a man loses his 
temper he usually loses his case, and that is almost al- 
ways true in evangelism. If one's religion does not 
give him self-mastery, he is only wasting words in 
offering it to another. 

Jesus sagaciously keeps to the figure of drink. But 
the drink that he would give would be an inward per- 
petual satisfaction as compared with the water i-n the 



246 EVANGELISM 

well, which cost effort and inconvenience, and gave 
no permanent satisfaction. He is talking about water; 
she is thinking about water. Religion is not yet men- 
tioned, and he is not going to introduce it. Now she 
introduces a common ancestral ground — Jacob. She 
speaks of his gift to them of the well and of his great- 
ness, as many a person in modern times, when in rather 
close quarters, will tell of what wonderful Christian 
people their grandfather and grandmother were. But 
people cannot live on the piety of their dead ancestors. 
Jesus reminded her that Jacob and his sons and ser- 
vants and cattle, all of whom drank of the well, were 
dead. There was nothing life-giving in the drink that 
she could give him, but there was in the drink that he 
could give her. The soul-winner must show the world 
that the gospel is greater, has higher value, and gives 
more permanent satisfaction than anything in the 
world. He must adorn the gospel. Too much has 
been said on the loss side of religion, too little on the 
gain side of it. Jesus made his gift glorious and com- 
pelling to her. Now she is a suppliant at his feet. The 
order has been reversed. She forgot her impertinence, 
her pride, her refusal — all were lost in the glory 
of this new gift which this unaccountable Gentleman, 
whose like she never saw before, had to give. Her .own 
sense of need blotted out all else, and now she humbly 
asks him for a favor, taking him at his own word, 
w^hich showed her respect for and confidence in him. 
How quickly he won her ! How easily he might have 
increased her hostility! He is still talking of drink 
and water, but he means religion. He means the life 
of God in her soul. She is thinking in terms of water. 



THE MASTER SOUL-WINNER 247 

If Jesus had suddenly said, "Woman, I mean Jewish 
reHgion," she would have resented it as an attempt to 
perpetrate a coarse joke on a poor, hard-working 
woman, and that would have ended the interview, and 
Jew and Samaritan would have had less dealing than 
ever. But how is he going to introduce religion ? How 
will he change the subject? He will not do it. He 
will make her do it; and after she has done it she can- 
not lightly change the subject again. She asks for 
the water he has been speaking about, and he as much 
as says: *^This gift is so great that it ought to be 
shared with others. Go call thy husband." That 
seemed like a very simple and natural statement, but 
it uncovered her whole checkered life. Her husband! 
There she saw that wasted, wicked life. How disap- 
pointing it looked now ! But he was a stranger and a 
Jew. What did he know about her life as a Samari- 
tan? Perhaps he is just guessing. He may think that 
she has a husband, so she thinks that a half truth, 
which is often more dangerous than a whole lie, would 
be the easiest way out of an embarrassing situation, so 
she said, "I have no husband.'' Then in one short, 
clear sentence Jesus sums up her career, reminding her 
that the man she was living with was not her husband. 
She saw that her life was known, and that nothing 
could be hidden from that searching eye she now faced. 
The water and the well and the physical thirst were now 
lost in the greater need of the soul. She was now only 
the burned-out cinder of a former deceived and deceiv- 
ing womanhood; there was nothing left now but a 
great need. Her soul now spoke, and it spoke about 
religion. *'I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our 



248 EVANGELISM 

fathers worshiped" — That is a long step from the con- 
tempt with which she started. But up to this time 
Jesus did not mention religion, for he led her so 
skillfully that he made her introduce it by throwing her 
back upon her sinful past. He made her see her own 
soul and the need of a better life than she had been 
living. 

Now she gives the opportunity to raise a religious 
discussion on the respective merits of the Jewish and 
Samaritan religions (see verse 20), but Jesus quickly 
reminded her that the essential thing was a right rela- 
tion to God which did not depend upon the Samaritan 
mountain or the Jewish city. Religion was a matter 
of the heart, not of a locality. The true worshiper 
whose heart is right with God can worship anywhere, 
at that well as truly as in Jerusalem, or in the temple 
on Mount Gerizim. That universality of worship was 
to be under the reign of the Messiah, and the woman 
considered the statement of Jesus as an ideal which 
would be realized when the Messiah came, to which 
Jesus replied the Messiah was there — *T that speak 
unto thee am he" (see verses 25, 26). 

He did not tell her to go home and think it over and 
pray about it and come back the next day and report to 
him what her decision was, as many people do in these 
days. Many never come back to report ; their enthusi- 
asm cools, then conviction lessens its power, then sense 
of need is lost in attention to other things; they are 
often dissuaded by their friends from making a favor- 
able decision, and, accordingly, nothing comes of their 
high resolve. People are often brought right up to the 
point of decision and then permitted to slip away with- 



THE MASTER SOUL-WINNER 249 

out deciding the matter and settling all other matters 
later in the light of that decision. That is a great mis- 
take. Delays between desires and decisions in evan- 
gelistic work are dangerous. 

Jesus clinched the decision right on the spot, and in- 
stead of the woman going home to think and pray it 
over before she decided, she went home a converted 
woman and started a revival in her own town. This 
was the best evidence that she was converted. She be- 
camte a witness for Christ and a soul-winner at once. 

There has been much written on the art of soul- 
winning, but for consummate skill in the handling of a 
difficult case and by patience, gentleness, courtesy, and 
wisdom, bringing it to a successful issue, there is 
nothing ever written more masterful than the fourth 
chapter of John's Gospel. As a study in the method 
and spirit of soul-winning, this chapter is unsurpassed 
and unsurpassable. 

Jesus begins by asking a favor of her ; he is a peti- 
tioner at her feet (verse 7). She answers him with im- 
pertinence (verse 8). Jesus meets that impertinence 
with gracious courtesy (verse 10). Now she becomes 
polite and interested (verses 11, 12). Jesus then con- 
trasts his gift with hers and shows its superiority 
(verses 13, 14). She is now a petitioner at his feet 
asking a favor of him (verse 15). Jesus throws her 
back on her sinful past to show her a deeper need than 
a drink of water (verse 16) , The woman now tries to 
evade the issue by a falsehood (verse 17). Jesus then 
sums up her history in a sentence and shows that he 
cannot be deceived (verses 17, 18). The woman calls 
him a prophet, and introduces religion (verse ig, 20). 



250 EVANGELISM 

Then Jesus explains true religion and the nature of 
worship under God's Fatherhood (verses 21-24). To 
this the woman replies that the Messiah in coming, and 
he will tell the people what they ought to do ; and she 
implies that when he does the people will obey (verse 
25). Jesus declares himself to be the Messiah, and 
takes her at her word (verse 26). The woman is con- 
verted and goes into the city and witnesses for Christ 
(verses 28-30) . A revival is started in Sychar through 
the life and testimony of this woman (verses 39-42). 
Now see what was done, note the process and the 
progress. 

( 1 ) He was a Jew for whom she had contempt. 

(2) He was a Gentleman for whom she had respect. 

(3) He was a benefactor in whom she had confi- 
dence. 

(4) He was a Prophet for whom she had rever- 
ence. 

(5) He was the Messiah whom she worshiped. 

(6) He was a Master whom she served. 

Jew, gentleman, benefactor, Prophet, Saviour, Mas- 
ter — those were the steps in his self -revelation to her ; 
and the steps of transformation in her own attitude 
toward him were contempt, respect, confidence, rever- 
ence, worship, and service. 

A careful study of this chapter of John's Gospel will 
give one in a nutshell the psychology and the religion of 
soul-winning. It is the earnest hope of the author 
that those who read this book may be helped by its 
suggestions to see the value of pastoral and personal 
evangelism, to give greater care and culture to young 
converts, and, above all, that by studying the example 



THE MASTER SOUL- WINNER 251 

of Jesus as the Master Soul- Winner, they may be in- 
spired by his spirit, instructed by his method, and fired 
by his passion to help establish the kingdom of God in 
the earth. 



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